{"id":109174,"date":"2025-03-10T21:03:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T21:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/musk-calls-sen-kelly-a-traitor-over-trip-to-ukraine-kelly-hits-back\/"},"modified":"2025-03-10T21:03:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T21:03:32","slug":"musk-calls-sen-kelly-a-traitor-over-trip-to-ukraine-kelly-hits-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/musk-calls-sen-kelly-a-traitor-over-trip-to-ukraine-kelly-hits-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk calls Sen. Kelly a &#8216;traitor&#8217; over trip to Ukraine, Kelly hits back"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/syndication.abcaudio.com\/files\/2025-03-10\/News_ElonMusk_31025.png\" alt><figcaption>Allison Pecorin and Sarah Beth Hensley, ABC News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\">(WASHINGTON) &#8212; Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, called Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly a &#8220;traitor&#8221; in a post on X after Kelly posted that he had visited Ukraine over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Kelly,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenMarkKelly\/status\/1898872403175858375\"><span class=\"s1\">in a thread on X<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Sunday night, posted photos of his visit to Ukraine and wrote that &#8220;Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine&#8217;s security and can&#8217;t be a giveaway to Putin.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In a reply to the thread, Musk responded, &#8220;You are a traitor.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Kelly, a former Navy pilot and astronaut, responded in a separate post on X.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;Traitor? Elon, if you don&#8217;t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do,&#8221; wrote Kelly, whose recent trip marked his third visit to Ukraine since 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The comments from Musk, one of President Donald Trump&#8217;s closest advisers, comes weeks after\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/key-takeaways-tempers-flare-trump-vance-confront-ukraines\/story?id=119299758\"><span class=\"s1\">an explosive meeting<\/span><\/a>\u00a0between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office that devolved into a shouting match. During the stunning exchange, Trump and Vice President JD Vance rebuked Zelenskyy for his handling of the war, falsely blaming the Ukrainian leader for a conflict that began when Russia&#8217;s Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">After the meeting, Zelenskyy left without signing an agreement that would have given the U.S. access to Ukraine&#8217;s mineral resources, which the country had hoped would ensure the continued flow of U.S. military support as it battles Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Trump&#8217;s administration has embarked on a dramatic pivot away from the &#8220;ironclad&#8221; backing of Ukraine practiced by former President Joe Biden&#8217;s administration. Trump has falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia, called Zelenskyy a &#8220;dictator&#8221; and frozen military aid and intelligence support in a bid to force Ukraine into making concessions to Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Kelly, along with other Democrats,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/democrats-decry-republicans-applaud-trumps-confrontation-zelenskyy\/story?id=119305519\"><span class=\"s2 s3\">have been critical of Trump&#8217;s approach with Ukraine.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;If we abandon our ally Ukraine, we will be viewed by other countries including our other allies as untrustworthy and in the future we shouldn&#8217;t expect their help,&#8221;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenMarkKelly\/status\/1898872421135815033\"><span class=\"s1\">Kelly posted to X<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Kelly and Musk have feuded in the past. When Musk attacked Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen last month, calling him &#8220;an idiot,&#8221; Kelly and his brother Scott Kelly, also an astronaut, pushed back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;Hey @ElonMusk, when you finally get the nerve to climb into a rocket ship, come talk to the three of us,&#8221;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CaptMarkKelly\/status\/1893030621628293576\"><span class=\"s1\">Kelly wrote<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Allison Pecorin and Sarah Beth Hensley, ABC News (WASHINGTON) &#8212; Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, called Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly a &#8220;traitor&#8221; in a post on X after Kelly posted that he had visited Ukraine over the weekend. Kelly,\u00a0in a thread on<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/musk-calls-sen-kelly-a-traitor-over-trip-to-ukraine-kelly-hits-back\/\">Read More &rarr;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}