Could all of the old white at-least-slightly-bigoted Republican guys please shut up now? Because that would be great.

When NPR interviewed John Kelly (full transcript here) they started by saying

I don't think they meant this, but this is offensive also too. NPR pushed hard on the issue of putting undocumented children in foster care and separating them from their parents, Kelly responded:

JOHN KELLY: Let me step back and tell you that the vast majority of the people that move illegally into the United States are not bad people. They're not criminals. They're not MS-13. Some of them are not. But they're also not people that would easily assimilate into the United States into our modern society. They're overwhelmingly rural people in the countries they come from – fourth, fifth, sixth-grade educations are kind of the norm. They don't speak English, obviously, that's a big thing. They don't speak English. They don't integrate well, they don't have skills. They're not bad people. They're coming here for a reason. And I sympathize with the reason. But the laws are the laws. But a big name of the game is deterrence.

Shorter Kelly: Hey I'm really sorry you're escaping war/hunger/personal danger but if you cross our border we'll kidnap your kids.

Kelly said this with no cognizance that he might offend those Trump voters who are Rural and Uneducated. But they wouldn't notice the sleight from Kelly since he's talking about Mexicans, and they may be uneducated but they know a dog whistle when they hear one.

And Twitter noticed that last name, "Kelly" and thought about Irish potato famine refugees with zero education who got here and "assimilated into the United States into our modern society" so their descendants, perhaps in an official capacity as Donald Trump's chief of staff, could make fools of themselves on National Public Radio.