Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (2018), p. 109
“

Trump, a former military academy cadet- albeit not an enthusiastic one- had touted a return to military values and expertise. In fact, he most of all had sought to preserve his personal right to defy or ignore his own organization. This, too, made sense, since not really having an organization was the most efficient way to sidestep the people in your organization and to dominate them. It was just one irony of his courtship of admired military figures like James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly: they found themselves working in an administration that was in every way inimical to basic command principles.

— Michael Wolff

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Trump, a former military academy cadet- albeit not an enthusiastic one- had touted a return to military values and expertise. In fact, he most of all had sought to preserve his personal right to defy or ignore his own organization. This, too, made sense, since not really having an organization was the most efficient way to sidestep the people in your organization and to dominate them. It was just one irony of his courtship of admired military figures like James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly: they found themselves working in an administration that was in every way inimical to basic command principles." in the context of "Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (2018), p. 109" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "John F. Kelly" (Quotes about Kelly) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
John F. Kelly

About John F. Kelly

John Francis Kelly (born 11 May 1950) is a board member at Caliburn International and a retired U.S. Marine Corps general who served as the White House Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump from July 31, 2017, to January 2, 2019. He had previously served as Secretary of Homeland Security in the Trump administration.