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President Donald Trump attacked former White House chief of staff John Kelly at an extraordinary White House press conference Friday evening as the possible source for a report that he had called fallen troops 'suckers.'

Trump denounced the report and tore into Kelly, saying the former Marine General 'got eaten alive' and 'petered out' serving as his top advisor in the White House.

Trump ripped Kelly when asked about the brutal Atlantic story that reports he spoke of fallen U.S. soldiers as 'losers' and 'suckers' while skipping a planned solemn centennial visit to a cemetery in France that houses fallen Marines over concerns about getting rained on.

'I know John Kelly. He was with me – didn’t do a good job. Had no temperament. And ultimately was petered out. He was exhausted,' Trump said, when asked about Kelly's notable absence from public comment about the story.

Trump did not assert definitively his belief that Kelly was the source of the report – which he also asserted may have come from made-up sources.

But he accused the former top aide of bad mouthing him.

'This man was totally exhausted. He wasn’t even able to function in the last number of months,' Trump said.

'He was not able to function. He was sort of a tough guy. By the time he got eaten up in this world, he was unable to function.'

'I told him: John you’re going to have to go,' Trump said, describing Kelly's prolonged departure. 'And now he goes out and bad-mouths. Now, there are people that are jealous. There are people that are upset that they’re not here anymore. There are people – we’ve done an incredible job, the virus came in, and now w’ere doing an incredible job again,' Trump said, his thoughts shifting to the pandemic.

'I don’t know that it was him. I haven’t seen that. I mean I see "anonymous." But it could have been a guy like a John Kelly – just so you understand,' Trump said.

Kelly was a key figure who appeared twice in the story, once regarding the 2018 trip to Belleau Wood, and once regarding Trump's 2017 visit to Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day.

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Donald Trump has demanded that Fox News fire a reporter after she confirmed a report in the Atlantic which suggested he had mocked and belittled war veterans.

The politically explosive report, published on Thursday, claimed that the president called U.S. military heroes killed in battle 'losers' and 'suckers' – and turned down a trip to visit U.S. war dead in France due to the rain.

The president gloated in a tweet that the Fox News story 'did not confirm the most salacious part' of the Atlantic's report that he had called First and Second World War veterans 'losers' and had skipped visiting the graves of American soldiers because he didn't want the rain to ruin his hair.

But Jennifer Griffin did confirm that Trump called US Army veterans 'suckers', had not wanted wounded soldiers included in military parades because 'it was not a good look' and had not wanted to honor American war dead at Aisne-Marne Cemetery outside Paris.

Fox News, the Washington Post and Associated Press were among the news outlets to all confirm the Atlantic's reporting on Friday.

Trump was so enraged by Fox News' reporting, confirming the story, that he demanded the journalist Griffin be fired.

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Melania Trump earlier on Friday evening joined the fray and denied the highly-damaging report, tweeting that it was untrue and brought shame on journalism.

Her response came as Fox News independently confirmed all of the details in the Atlantic's report, with their national security correspondent, Jennifer Griffin, appearing on the network to say her sources had told her it was entirely true.

Griffin said that she was told the president did indeed decide he didn't want to attend the rainy ceremony commemorating U.S. war dead in France.

'The president drives a lot,' Griffin said she was told. 'The other world leaders drove to the cemeteries. He just didn't want to go.'

Two former senior officials also confirmed to her that he disparaged war dead.

According to Griffin, one of the former senior Trump administration officials told her: 'When the President spoke about the Vietnam War, he said, "It was a stupid war. Anyone who went was a sucker".'

Griffin's sources confirmed that they heard Trump say he didn't want 'wounded guys' in military parades, adding: 'Americans don't like that'.

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Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
Speaking of Jennifer Griffin, just read her tweet threads confirming the details of Goldberg's story point by point.

Note also that HER sources choose to remain anonymous as well ... the shits.

Jennifer Griffin

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When the decision was made to cancel the visit to the Aisne-Marne cemetery, no aides cautioned Trump that it would play poorly, which he later blamed on Gen. John Kelly and one of Kelly’s top aides, Zach Fuentes. One person familiar with the discussions in the aftermath said Trump accused them of “f*cking him” by not predicting the inevitable fallout.

Aides said at the time that Trump did not push to attend the ceremony after being told he could not fly there in the helicopter and that traveling by motorcade would prove difficult logistically.

Kelly replaced Trump on the visit to the cemetery.

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But Trump’s attack on Griffin was a bridge too far for her colleagues, seven of whom took to Twitter over the weekend to defend her.

“Jennifer @JenGriffinFNC is a great reporter and a total class act,” wrote Baier, the network’s chief political anchor.

“Jennifer Griffin is the kind of reporter we all strive to be like,” said national correspondent Bryan Llenas. “She’s courageous, smart, ethical, fair and a class act. She’s earned the trust of viewers throughout a distinguished career and is credibile.”

“@JenGriffinFNC is a terrific reporter and a wonderful colleague,” State Department correspondent Rich Edson wrote.

“I’ll forever stand by @JenGriffinFNC,” said senior news producer Rocco Aloe.

“Jennifer Griffin is all you want in a journalist and a friend,” wrote senior field producer Yonat Friling. “She’s smart, courageous, she strives for professionalism and the truth. I am so proud to be her colleague.”

Griffin, who joined Fox News in 1999, is one of the network’s most prized and distinguished journalists. In October 2019, after news anchor Shepard Smith, a frequent critic of the president, abruptly resigned, the network cited Griffin as evidence that a robust journalistic corps remained, despite external skepticism. “Tell that to Jennifer Griffin, whose report just went viral this week,” a spokesperson said at the time. “Or Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer, Martha MacCallum or Catherine Herridge, who have all done outstanding journalism.” (Herridge soon left the network for CBS News.)

“Jennifer is a straight shooter and always pursues reporting with the goal of uncovering the truth,” former Fox News foreign correspondent Conor Powell, who worked with Griffin, told The Washington Post on Saturday. “Unlike a lot of ‘news people’ at Fox News, she never was worried about being on the wrong side of a story and angering the opinion shows.”

Griffin defended herself during an appearance on Fox News on Saturday. “My sources are unimpeachable,” she said. “I feel very confident with what we have reported at Fox. Not every line of the Atlantic article did I confirm, but I would say that most of the descriptions and the quotes in that Atlantic article, I did find people who were able to confirm, and so I feel very confident in my reporting. … I’m a reporter, and it was my job to report what I heard.”

Anchor Neil Cavuto then endorsed her work. “Jennifer, you are a very good reporter,” he told her. Then, addressing his audience, he said, “She’s pretty scrupulous when it comes to making sure all the i’s are dotted, all the t’s are crossed.”

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Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume offered a fiery defense of his colleague Jennifer Griffin after she came under fire for confirming much of a report from The Atlantic that alleges President Donald Trump made disparaging remarks about U.S. military service members.

Hume leapt to the defense of his colleague in response to a Saturday tweet from Steve Milloy, a Fox contributor who bills himself as "perhaps the most influential climate science contrarian," which suggested that Griffin was suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome" or had been reporting "as instructed" out of a sense of fear.

"This is ********," Hume tweeted in response to Milloy. "Jen plays it straight and always has."

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Well, thanks, Martha, and I'm glad you're doing a segment on this -- this story.

Well, my reaction is, if these comments are real -- and I'll address that in a second -- but if they're real, it's beneath the dignity of any commander in chief. Truly they're despicable.

Now, one of the points that one of the veterans made, which is a good point, these are anonymous sources. But let's go back and look at Mr. Trump's words himself coming out of his own mouth starting in 2016 with what he said about John McCain and what he continued to say about McCain. How he degraded the service of Generals Mattis and McMaster and just recently General Kelly. The history of -- of this president over the last three and four years is -- is pretty clear.

That 2018 experience when he did not go to the American military cemetery in France to recognize and honor the World War I Marines. Every other leader went. Every other leader drove. The leaders of France, Germany, Canada. And you can go through a litany of past things that he said from his mouth, actions that he's taken and it corroborates really the Goldberg article in "The Atlantic."

RADDATZ: And how much do you believe this will resonate with the military really?

HAGEL: Well, I think it will resonate because what I've just said, he's on the record with saying things himself over the past few years. And -- and that -- that makes the credibility of this article and those anonymous comments more and more credible.

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Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said his magazine's story about Trump calling Americans who died in battle "losers" and "suckers," was just the tip of the iceberg.

"I would fully expect more reporting to come out about this and more confirmation and new pieces of information in the coming days and weeks," Goldberg told CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter on "Reliable Sources" Sunday. "We have a responsibility and we're going to do it regardless of what he says."

The magazine received backlash -- from Trump and many others -- for attributing the information to four anonymous sources. CNN has confirmed several aspects of The Atlantic's reporting, also with sources who chose to remain anonymous.

But Goldberg said that's how the media is able to do its job of uncovering stories that take place behind closed doors.

"We all have to use anonymous sources, especially in a climate where the president of the United States tries to actively intimidate," Goldberg said of his editorial decision to cite nameless people.

"These are not people who are anonymous to me."

Carl Bernstein, the investigate reporter known for breaking the Watergate story that took down President Richard Nixon, told Stelter on Reliable Sources Sunday that anonymous sourcing is often a crucial tool for reporters.

"Almost all 200 of our stories about Watergate were based on anonymous sourcing," he said. Bernstein added that during the Trump era, "reporting is almost uniformly based on anonymous sourcing in part because that's the only way we can get to the truth."

When it comes to the current presidency, Bernstein said, "We have to recognize that almost everything we know about the truth of Donald Trump and his presidency comes from reporting," adding, "The fake news is the president's news," and journalists are "doing the real reporting."