9/16/21: Let’s keep it simple today. If
you thought Donald J. Trump was nuts, you were not alone.
____________________
Keeping
America safe – from President Trump
____________________
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.
