Mark Kelly recently took a jab at President Donald Trump, calling him a “disabled president.” The Arizona Senator made the statement while defending his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords. The remark comes amid talks of Kelly running for president in 2028.
Mark Kelly makes bizarre statement about Donald Trump
Mark Kelly recently sat for an interview with The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich. In it, the Arizona Senator talked about his wife, former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords.
In 2011, during a “Congress on Your Corner” event in Tucson, Giffords survived a gunshot to the head. However, it led to a severe brain injury. The recovery following the assassination attempt took several years, which she spent relearning to walk and speak again. Her forceful resignation from Congress had then become one of the major talking points in American politics.
Kelly is now rumored to run for president in 2028. In this context, The Atlantic asked him whether the country is ready for a disabled First Lady. Taking a swipe at Trump, Kelly replied, “Hey, in my opinion, we have a disabled president right now.”
Kelly went on to praise his wife, saying, “The way she connects with people is unlike anybody else I’ve ever known. Before she was injured, people used to compare her with Bill Clinton. She’s been in this business,” The Arizona Senator added, “And she had, you know, like the worst thing that any politician could have happen, right? She gets shot in the head.”
Giffords has been living with aphasia, a disorder which affects her ability to communicate with speech, since she survived the assassination attempt. In a 2024 joint statement to People, Giffords and Kelly shared the most important thing the couple lost that fateful day.
They said, “Of everything that changed that day — both of us halting our careers, the beginning of a long, difficult road to recovery — we also lost something we wanted very much: the opportunity to have a child together.”
