WEHRMACHT WARNS ABOUT HITLER
Andrew Feinberg
Fri, October 11, 2024 at 11:29 AM MDT·3 min read
Trump’s top general calls ex-president ‘fascist to the core’ and ‘most dangerous person to this country,’ new book says
Mark Milley, the US Army general who Donald Trump appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now says the current Republican presidential nominee is a “fascist to the core” and says no person has ever posed more of a danger to the United States than the man who served as the 45th President of the United States.
Milley, a decorated military officer who became a target for right-wing scorn after it became known that he expressed concerns over Trump’s mental stability in the wake of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, is described by journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, War, as incredibly alarmed at the prospect of a second Trump term in the White House. The Independent obtained a copy ahead of the book’s October 15 release date.
In the wake of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a riotous mob of the then-president’s supporters, Woodward writes that Milley insisted on securing a meeting with the then-newly-minted attorney general, Merrick Garland, to urge him to investigate domestic violent extremism and far-right militia movements.
According to Woodward, a senior Department of Justice lawyer said at the time that Milley’s sit-down with Garland might have been the first-ever meeting between a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the country’s top civilian law enforcement official. He writes that the general asked for the meeting because he was “deeply convinced” that Trump remained “a danger to the country” even though he had been forced from office after Biden’s election win.
Milley was nominated to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Donald Trump in 2019 (Copyright 2019. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
But the Army veteran expressed even more strident concerns to Woodward himself at a March 2023 meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC.
Woodward writes that when he approached Milley at a reception, the general spoke first and told him: “We gotta talk.”
He told the journalist that “no one has ever been as dangerous to this country” as the former president.
He asked: “Do you realize, do you see what this man is?”
Milley, who had been a source for Woodward’s last book, Peril, said he’d “glimpsed” Trump’s true nature when they previously spoke during the writing of that 2021 release, but he said he now knew exactly what the ex-president is.
“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” he said.
“A fascist to the core,” Milley repeated.
The general’s private comments to Woodward, which have not been previously reported, were echoed in cutting remarks Milley made publicly at his September 2023 retirement ceremony, when, without mentioning Trump’s name, he appeared to take a swipe at the ex-president.
In the impassioned speech, he defiantly said the US military is “unique” among the world’s fighting forces because it does not profess fealty to any one person.
Milley retired from the US Army in 2023 (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
““We don’t take an oath to a country, we don’t take an oath to a tribe, we don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator,” he said.
Apparently referencing Trump, he immediately added: “And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator!”
““We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America — and we’re willing to die to protect it,” he said.
Milley calls Trump ‘a fascist to the core’ in new Woodward book
Ellen Mitchell
THE HILL
Fri, October 11, 2024
Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair and retired Gen. Mark Milley has called former President Trump “a total fascist” and believes he is the most dangerous person to the U.S., according to excerpts from the forthcoming Bob Woodward book.
“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” Milley told Woodward for the book “War,” which was previewed by The Guardian. “A fascist to the core.”
Milley, who was chair under Trump and President Biden, also fears he would be court-martialed should Trump win the presidency next month because the commander in chief has power over retired commissioned officers and can recall them to active duty and court-martial them.
Such a situation is not out of the realm of possibility because Trump has often voiced his desire to take revenge on those who have spoken out against him.
“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley warned former colleagues, according to Woodward. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”
Woodward cites Steve Bannon, a former senior Trump adviser, who earlier this year gave a list of people he believes Trump should go after if he is elected to a second term, including Milley, former FBI directors Andrew McCabe and James Comey, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and former Attorney General Bill Barr.
“We’re gonna hold him accountable,” Bannon says of Milley in the book.
Bannon is in jail for contempt of Congress.
Trump has previously sought to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who have criticized him. In a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump’s second confirmed secretary of Defense, the then-president “yelled” and “shouted” about two former military officials, William McRaven and Stanley McChrystal, Woodward writes.
McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, had written a piece for the Washington Post about Trump, saying “there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”
And McChrystal, a retired special forces general whose men killed al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006, made comments on CNN calling Trump “immoral” and “dishonest.”
Trump called Milley and Esper to the White House and pushed the two to take care of the retired officials, but they pressed him not to seek to punish McRaven and McChrystal.
“The president didn’t want to hear it,” so Milley promised Trump he would “‘take care of this,’” according to Woodward.
Milley then called McRaven and McChrystal and warned them to “pull it back” and “step off the public stage.”
Woodward also wrote of Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since he retired last year, saying he has installed bullet-proof glass and blast-proof curtains at his home at his own expense.
Milley has often spoken out against Trump and relayed stories from his time in the Joint Chiefs from 2019 to 2023.
In a speech during his retirement ceremony, Milley infamously appeared to directly refer to Trump, who was then seeking to become the Republican presidential nominee.
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
Woodward’s book has also revealed several other bombshells, including that Trump sent COVID-19 testing machines to Russian President Vladimir Putin for personal use in 2020 at the height of the pandemic and that he has had at least seven phone calls with Putin since leaving office.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mark Milley fears being court-martialed if Trump wins, Woodward book says
Fri, October 11, 2024
Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair and retired Gen. Mark Milley has called former President Trump “a total fascist” and believes he is the most dangerous person to the U.S., according to excerpts from the forthcoming Bob Woodward book.
“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” Milley told Woodward for the book “War,” which was previewed by The Guardian. “A fascist to the core.”
Milley, who was chair under Trump and President Biden, also fears he would be court-martialed should Trump win the presidency next month because the commander in chief has power over retired commissioned officers and can recall them to active duty and court-martial them.
Such a situation is not out of the realm of possibility because Trump has often voiced his desire to take revenge on those who have spoken out against him.
“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley warned former colleagues, according to Woodward. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”
Woodward cites Steve Bannon, a former senior Trump adviser, who earlier this year gave a list of people he believes Trump should go after if he is elected to a second term, including Milley, former FBI directors Andrew McCabe and James Comey, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and former Attorney General Bill Barr.
“We’re gonna hold him accountable,” Bannon says of Milley in the book.
Bannon is in jail for contempt of Congress.
Trump has previously sought to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who have criticized him. In a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump’s second confirmed secretary of Defense, the then-president “yelled” and “shouted” about two former military officials, William McRaven and Stanley McChrystal, Woodward writes.
McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, had written a piece for the Washington Post about Trump, saying “there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”
And McChrystal, a retired special forces general whose men killed al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006, made comments on CNN calling Trump “immoral” and “dishonest.”
Trump called Milley and Esper to the White House and pushed the two to take care of the retired officials, but they pressed him not to seek to punish McRaven and McChrystal.
“The president didn’t want to hear it,” so Milley promised Trump he would “‘take care of this,’” according to Woodward.
Milley then called McRaven and McChrystal and warned them to “pull it back” and “step off the public stage.”
Woodward also wrote of Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since he retired last year, saying he has installed bullet-proof glass and blast-proof curtains at his home at his own expense.
Milley has often spoken out against Trump and relayed stories from his time in the Joint Chiefs from 2019 to 2023.
In a speech during his retirement ceremony, Milley infamously appeared to directly refer to Trump, who was then seeking to become the Republican presidential nominee.
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
Woodward’s book has also revealed several other bombshells, including that Trump sent COVID-19 testing machines to Russian President Vladimir Putin for personal use in 2020 at the height of the pandemic and that he has had at least seven phone calls with Putin since leaving office.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mark Milley fears being court-martialed if Trump wins, Woodward book says
Martin Pengelly in Washington
THE GUARDIAN
Fri, October 11, 2024
Mark Milley has received ‘a non-stop barrage of death threats’ since his retirement, Bob Woodward writes.Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Mark Milley, a retired US army general who was chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power.
“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently “warned former colleagues”, the veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward writes in an upcoming book. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”
Woodward cites Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist now jailed for contempt of Congress, as saying of Milley: “We’re gonna hold him accountable.”
Related: Trump secretly gave Putin Covid test machines, Bob Woodward book says
Trump’s wish to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who criticized him in print has been reported before, including by Mark Esper, Trump’s second secretary of defense. In Woodward’s telling, in a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump “yelled” and “shouted” about William McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, and Stanley McChrystal, the retired special forces general whose men killed another al-Qaida leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in Iraq in 2006.
Milley was able to persuade Trump to back down, Woodward writes, but fears no such guardrails will be in place if Trump is re-elected.
Woodward also describes Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since his retirement last year, and quotes the former general as telling him, of Trump: “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country.”
Milley spoke to Woodward for his previous reporting. Woodward now reports the former general as saying: “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.
“A fascist to the core.”
Woodward, 81, made his name in the 1970s with Carl Bernstein during Watergate, the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon. Woodward’s new blockbuster, War, will be published on Tuesday. His fourth book at least in part about Trump – after Fear, Rage, and Peril – stoked uproar this week with the release of revelations including that Trump sent Covid testing machines to Vladimir Putin early in the coronavirus pandemic, and that Trump has had as many as seven phone calls with the Russian president since leaving office.
Milley was chair of the joint chiefs of staff from 2019 to 2023. His attempts to cope with Trump have been widely reported – particularly in relation to Trump’s demands for military action against protesters for racial justice in the summer of 2020 and, later that year, Trump’s attempt to stay in power despite losing the election to Biden.
Last year, marking his retirement, Milley appeared to take a direct swipe at Trump, then a candidate for a third successive Republican presidential nomination.
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley told a military audience at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
Since then, Trump has brushed aside Republican rivals to seize the nomination, campaigned against first Biden then Harris, and survived two assassination attempts. Less than a month from election day, he and Harris are locked in a tight race.
In office, Trump memorably insisted senior military officers owed their loyalty to him, even reportedly telling his second chief of staff, the retired marine general John Kelly, US generals should “be like the German generals” who Trump insisted were “totally loyal” to Adolf Hitler during the second world war. Kelly mentioned military assassination plots against Hitler but Trump was not convinced.
As told by Woodward, in 2020 Trump became enraged by pieces McRaven wrote for the Washington Post and the New York Times – writing in the Post that “there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil” – and comments McChrystal made on CNN, calling Trump “immoral” and “dishonest”.
“As commander-in-chief” of US armed forces, Woodward writes, “Trump had extraordinary power over retired commissioned officers. It was within his authority to recall them to active duty and court-martial them. But it had only been done a few times in American history and for very serious crimes. For instance, when a retired two-star [general] was charged in 2017 with six counts of raping a minor while on active duty in the 1980s.”
So Trump summoned Milley and Esper. The president demanded action but the two men told him not to seek to punish McRaven and McChrystal, because they had a right to voice their opinions and because it would backfire, drawing attention to their words.
“The president didn’t want to hear it,” Woodward writes.
So Milley switched tack.
“‘Mr President,’ Milley said. ‘I’m the senior military officer responsible for the good order and discipline of general officers and I’ll take care of this.’
“Trump’s head whipped round. ‘You really will?’ he asked skeptically.
“‘Absolutely,’ Milley assured him.
“‘OK, you take care of it,’ President Trump said.”
Such dramatic Oval Office scenes are familiar from previous books by Woodward and legions of competing reporters and former Trump officials. According to Woodward’s new reporting, Milley did take action after fending Trump off, calling McRaven and McChrystal and warning them to “step off the public stage”.
“‘Pull it back,’ Milley said. If Trump actually used his authority to recall them to duty, there was little Milley could do.”
Woodward then quotes Milley speaking this year about his fear that Trump will seek to punish his military critics if he returns to power.
McRaven, now a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Milley’s fear of retribution and whether he shared it.
Trump has given such figures plenty of reason to worry. Among proliferating campaign-trail controversies, the former president has frequently voiced his desire for revenge on opponents and critics, including by using the FBI and Department of Justice to mount politically motivated investigations. At rallies, Trump has frequently told crowds: “I am your retribution.”
The Utah senator Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, was recently asked about possible consequences of his own opposition to Trump including votes to convict in both his impeachment trials.
Related: Trump took ‘British naval secrets’ to Mar-a-Lago, says Christopher Steele
“I think he has shown by his prior actions that you can take him at his word,” a “suddenly subdued” Romney told the Atlantic. “So I would take him at his word.”
Woodward also reports Milley’s harrowing experiences since stepping down as chair of the joint chiefs.
“Since retiring, Milley had received a non-stop barrage of death threats that he, at least in part, attributed to Trump’s repeated attempts to discredit him.
“‘He is inciting people to violence with violent rhetoric,’ Milley told his wife. ‘But he does it in such a way it’s through the power of suggestion, which is exactly what he did on 6 January” 2021, the day Trump incited supporters to attack Congress, in hope of overturning his election defeat.
“As a former chairman, Milley was provided round-the-clock government security for two years. But he had taken additional precautions at significant personal expense, installing bullet-proof glass and blast-proof curtains at his home.”
Fri, October 11, 2024
Mark Milley has received ‘a non-stop barrage of death threats’ since his retirement, Bob Woodward writes.Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Mark Milley, a retired US army general who was chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power.
“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently “warned former colleagues”, the veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward writes in an upcoming book. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”
Woodward cites Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist now jailed for contempt of Congress, as saying of Milley: “We’re gonna hold him accountable.”
Related: Trump secretly gave Putin Covid test machines, Bob Woodward book says
Trump’s wish to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who criticized him in print has been reported before, including by Mark Esper, Trump’s second secretary of defense. In Woodward’s telling, in a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump “yelled” and “shouted” about William McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, and Stanley McChrystal, the retired special forces general whose men killed another al-Qaida leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in Iraq in 2006.
Milley was able to persuade Trump to back down, Woodward writes, but fears no such guardrails will be in place if Trump is re-elected.
Woodward also describes Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since his retirement last year, and quotes the former general as telling him, of Trump: “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country.”
Milley spoke to Woodward for his previous reporting. Woodward now reports the former general as saying: “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.
“A fascist to the core.”
Woodward, 81, made his name in the 1970s with Carl Bernstein during Watergate, the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon. Woodward’s new blockbuster, War, will be published on Tuesday. His fourth book at least in part about Trump – after Fear, Rage, and Peril – stoked uproar this week with the release of revelations including that Trump sent Covid testing machines to Vladimir Putin early in the coronavirus pandemic, and that Trump has had as many as seven phone calls with the Russian president since leaving office.
Milley was chair of the joint chiefs of staff from 2019 to 2023. His attempts to cope with Trump have been widely reported – particularly in relation to Trump’s demands for military action against protesters for racial justice in the summer of 2020 and, later that year, Trump’s attempt to stay in power despite losing the election to Biden.
Last year, marking his retirement, Milley appeared to take a direct swipe at Trump, then a candidate for a third successive Republican presidential nomination.
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley told a military audience at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
Since then, Trump has brushed aside Republican rivals to seize the nomination, campaigned against first Biden then Harris, and survived two assassination attempts. Less than a month from election day, he and Harris are locked in a tight race.
In office, Trump memorably insisted senior military officers owed their loyalty to him, even reportedly telling his second chief of staff, the retired marine general John Kelly, US generals should “be like the German generals” who Trump insisted were “totally loyal” to Adolf Hitler during the second world war. Kelly mentioned military assassination plots against Hitler but Trump was not convinced.
As told by Woodward, in 2020 Trump became enraged by pieces McRaven wrote for the Washington Post and the New York Times – writing in the Post that “there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil” – and comments McChrystal made on CNN, calling Trump “immoral” and “dishonest”.
“As commander-in-chief” of US armed forces, Woodward writes, “Trump had extraordinary power over retired commissioned officers. It was within his authority to recall them to active duty and court-martial them. But it had only been done a few times in American history and for very serious crimes. For instance, when a retired two-star [general] was charged in 2017 with six counts of raping a minor while on active duty in the 1980s.”
So Trump summoned Milley and Esper. The president demanded action but the two men told him not to seek to punish McRaven and McChrystal, because they had a right to voice their opinions and because it would backfire, drawing attention to their words.
“The president didn’t want to hear it,” Woodward writes.
So Milley switched tack.
“‘Mr President,’ Milley said. ‘I’m the senior military officer responsible for the good order and discipline of general officers and I’ll take care of this.’
“Trump’s head whipped round. ‘You really will?’ he asked skeptically.
“‘Absolutely,’ Milley assured him.
“‘OK, you take care of it,’ President Trump said.”
Such dramatic Oval Office scenes are familiar from previous books by Woodward and legions of competing reporters and former Trump officials. According to Woodward’s new reporting, Milley did take action after fending Trump off, calling McRaven and McChrystal and warning them to “step off the public stage”.
“‘Pull it back,’ Milley said. If Trump actually used his authority to recall them to duty, there was little Milley could do.”
Woodward then quotes Milley speaking this year about his fear that Trump will seek to punish his military critics if he returns to power.
McRaven, now a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Milley’s fear of retribution and whether he shared it.
Trump has given such figures plenty of reason to worry. Among proliferating campaign-trail controversies, the former president has frequently voiced his desire for revenge on opponents and critics, including by using the FBI and Department of Justice to mount politically motivated investigations. At rallies, Trump has frequently told crowds: “I am your retribution.”
The Utah senator Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, was recently asked about possible consequences of his own opposition to Trump including votes to convict in both his impeachment trials.
Related: Trump took ‘British naval secrets’ to Mar-a-Lago, says Christopher Steele
“I think he has shown by his prior actions that you can take him at his word,” a “suddenly subdued” Romney told the Atlantic. “So I would take him at his word.”
Woodward also reports Milley’s harrowing experiences since stepping down as chair of the joint chiefs.
“Since retiring, Milley had received a non-stop barrage of death threats that he, at least in part, attributed to Trump’s repeated attempts to discredit him.
“‘He is inciting people to violence with violent rhetoric,’ Milley told his wife. ‘But he does it in such a way it’s through the power of suggestion, which is exactly what he did on 6 January” 2021, the day Trump incited supporters to attack Congress, in hope of overturning his election defeat.
“As a former chairman, Milley was provided round-the-clock government security for two years. But he had taken additional precautions at significant personal expense, installing bullet-proof glass and blast-proof curtains at his home.”
No comments:
Post a Comment