September 16, 2021: If You Thought Trump Was Nuts, You Were Not Alone

 

9/16/21: Let’s keep it simple today. If you thought Donald J. Trump was nuts, you were not alone.

 

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Keeping America safe – from President Trump

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Prior to, and particularly after Trump’s bitter election defeat, Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Trump hand-picked him for the job), agreed. According to Peril, a new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, the former president’s behavior, especially on January 6, convinced Gen. Milley that extraordinary steps must be taken to keep the nation safe. 

From…Trump.

 

Twice, according to Woodward and Costa, Gen. Milley put in calls to top Chinese military officials, to reassure them that the U.S. military had no plans to strike. The first call was on October 30. 

According to The New York Times, which has reviewed an advance copy of Peril, that first call to General Li Zuocheng, seemed necessary: 

In the days leading up to the 2020 election, the book reveals, American intelligence showed that the Chinese believed that Mr. Trump planned to launch a military strike to create an international crisis that he could claim to solve as a last-ditch effort to beat Joseph R. Biden Jr.

 

Or to put it plainly: The Chinese also feared that Trump might be nuts. 

“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley said. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.” 

In the wake of the attack on Capitol Hill, Milley decided to call his Chinese counterpart again. Gen. Li and other Chinese leaders were rattled by what they (and the rest of the world) had just seen. 

Trump acting even more nuts.

 

On January 8, according to Woodward and Costa, Gen. Milley called a second time to offer reassurance. “Things may look unsteady,” he told the Chinese officer. “But that’s the nature of democracy, General Li. We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.” The two foes talked frankly, according to reports, for an hour-and-a-half. 

That same day, Milley took the extraordinary step of convening a secret meeting at the Pentagon. Present: the heads of all the U.S. military branches. He made clear. No order from President Trump, calling for a military strike, should be followed until Milley himself had been consulted. And the nuclear codes should be essentially removed from Trump’s hands. 

“The strict procedures,” already in place, Milley reminded everyone, “are explicitly designed to avoid inadvertent mistakes or accident or nefarious, unintentional, illegal, immoral, unethical launching of the world’s most dangerous weapons.” 

Then, according to Woodward and Costa, he went around the room. He asked each officer to confirm that they understood what he had said. Each in turn nodded. They understood. 

Because Milley believed the president was nuts.

 

Nor was he alone in his fears. Both Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General Bill Barr are said to have been convinced that drastic action was needed to protect American democracy – from Trump himself – and keep an unstable president from, for example, attacking Iran. 

In a transcript of a call between Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Gen. Milley, also on Jan. 8, this exchange took place: 

Pelosi: What I’m saying to you is that if they couldn’t even stop him from an assault on the Capitol, who even knows what else he may do? And is there anybody in charge at the White House who was doing anything but kissing his fat butt all over this? You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time.

 

Milley: Madam Speaker, I agree with you on everything. … The one thing I can guarantee is that as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I want you to know that – I want you to know this in your heart of hearts, I can guarantee you 110 percent that the military, use of military power, whether it’s nuclear or a strike in a foreign country of any kind, we’re not going to do anything illegal or crazy.

 

Pelosi: Well, what do you mean, illegal or crazy?

 

Milley: I can give you my word. The best I can do is give you my word and I’m going to prevent anything like that in the United States military.

 

Yeah. Illegal. Crazy. What Trump might try to do.

 

* 

“He is acting out like a six-year-old with a tantrum.” 

CALL IT “Fake News,” if you’re a Trump fan – because you can’t admit to yourself that you backed a nut. But Woodward and Costa have documents and witnesses to back up what they say. 

Gen. Milley (and others) are reported to have believed that Trump had gone into “serious mental decline” in the wake of his election defeat. At one point, C.I.A. head Gina Haspel (also a Trump pick) called Milley with concerns. When Trump refused to accept his defeat, Haspel warned Milley, “We are on the way to a right-wing coup. The whole thing is insanity. He is acting out like a six-year-old with a tantrum.” Would Trump try to attack Iran, and rally the country behind him? “This is a highly dangerous situation. We are going to lash out for his ego?” she wondered. 

Gen. Milley talked with Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, as well. Pompeo admitted that Trump was “in a very dark place.” 

Milley summed up the situation for Pompeo this way: “We’ve got a plane with four engines and three of them are out. We’ve got no landing gear. But we’re going to land this plane and we’re going to land it safely.” 

Left alone, the president might crash it straight into the ground.

 

* 

IF YOU DOUBT what Woodward and Costa have written, it appears many Republicans believe the basics of the story. That includes Donald J. Trump. Not that our ex-president has ever been known to read a book, but someone must have whispered in his ear about what the authors had said. 

Trump promptly accused Gen. Milley of committing “treason” and went on one of his patented diatribes. 

Sen. Marco Rubio checked in soon after, and called on President Biden to fire Gen. Milley for overstepping his authority. 

Naturally, when Sean Hannity invited Sen. Rubio to appear on his show, Hannity suggested that Gen. Milley had been “treasonous,” spinning the story in the worst conceivable way. In Hannity’s telling, Milley wasn’t reassuring the Chinese, to ensure there was no stumbling into war. He was giving information to the Communist Party leaders in China, our bitter foes!

 

Sen. Rubio really wants to run for president if Trump decides to bow out in 2024. So he managed to mention four times during his appearance that Gen. Milley was “colluding” with the Chinese. 

Rubio also managed to squeeze in the idea that Joe Biden might be “senile.” Then Hannity suggested, darkly, that Milley was offering “aid and comfort” to our enemy, China. 

Neither Rubio nor Hannity dared touch the main point. That top government officials believed Trump was nuts.

 

In an oddity to this story, former Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman – who testified during Trump’s first impeachment that, yes, of course the president put personal interests ahead of U.S. national security in a call to Ukraine – said he believed Gen. Milley would have to resign. “If this is true GEN Milley must resign,” Vindman wrote on Twitter. “He usurped civilian authority, broke Chain of Command, and violated the sacrosanct principle of civilian control over the military.” 

The dilemma, however, comes when the man in the Oval Office appears to have no control over himself. (Don’t forget: Trump blocked Vindman from a promotion, even after his commanders said he had earned one, because Vindman had told the truth. Under oath. Then, for good measure, he had a similar promotion, also deserved, blocked for Vindman’s twin brother.)

 

On Wednesday, the Washington Post explained: 

Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for Milley, issued a statement Wednesday largely confirming what’s disclosed in the book, “Peril,” set for release next week, and saying that Milley had acted constitutionally and within his established responsibilities [emphasis added]. The general, Butler said, “continues to act and advise within his authority in the lawful tradition of civilian control of the military and his oath to the Constitution.”

 

The Post continued, noting that the Pentagon had offered support for what Gen. Milley had done: 

“I see nothing in what I’ve read that would cause any concern,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters, adding that “it is not only common, it’s expected” that Milley or any chairman of the Joint Chiefs would have conversations with his counterparts in adversary nations “to reduce the risk of miscalculation and conflict.”

 

John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under Trump, also came to Milley’s defense.

 

“His patriotism is unquestioned,” Bolton said in a statement, noting that Milley would have been under enormous pressure after November’s election as Trump refused to accept his loss. He said he would be “very surprised” if others in national security roles “were not fully aware of General Milley’s actions” and “fully concurred in them.”

 

Asked for his opinion, President Biden noted simply, “I have great confidence in General Milley.”

 

The New York Times noted that White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had elaborated, saying of the general, that, “The president has complete confidence in his leadership, his patriotism and his fidelity to our Constitution.” 

According to the Times, a senior Pentagon official said that then-Secretary of Defense Mark A. Esper, “in the weeks before he was unceremoniously fired by Mr. Trump, also made calls of reassurance to foreign counterparts worried about the president.” 

Yeah. Because if you thought Trump was nuts, leaders around the globe had the same kind of fears. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: For context, don’t forget that Trump’s first pick for Sec. of Defense, Gen. James Mattis, came to view his boss as a threat to the U.S. Constitution. In the same way, Gen. John Kelly, who served as White House Chief of Staff, called Trump “the most flawed human being” he had ever met, and called him “unhinged.” Trump’s first Secretary of State referred to him, succinctly, as a “moron,” or “f**king moron,” depending on whom you quote, and his second National Security Advisor, H. R. McMaster, called him an “idiot,” with a grasp on issues equal to that of a “kindergartner.” As for his third National Security Advisor, John Bolton, he authored an entire book about, about how Trump put his own selfish interests above the interests of U.S. national security, likening what the president pulled with Ukraine to a “drug deal,” which got him (deservedly) impeached for the first time.