George Floyd protests: Trump forced to remove military from DC after backlash from top officials
President Donald Trump hit a wall on Thursday, June 4, after former generals and the country's top military and defense officials opposed the use of the military to quell protests. As a result, hundreds of combat soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division retreated from Washington DC. Members of the elite unit were deployed in the capital to support the National Guard troops that have been patrolling the streets after being ordered by Attorney General William Barr. Trump has been threatening protesters, who took to the streets over the brutal killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police last month, with military use even though the plan faced flak from within his own administration as well as opponents.
After the sudden reversal of the plan, active-duty soldiers were set to return to base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a senior defense official told NBC News. The move came after Army General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told the troops publicly to "uphold the Constitution" and that the National Guard was under the control of governors and not the president. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has also differed with Trump over the military use and the decision to reverse the troops' movement also came after his visit to the White House on June 3. Both Milley and Esper have come under pressure after Trump took a hardline stand on using the military to quell the domestic protests. Esper met the press at the Pentagon where he clearly distanced himself from the chief executive, particularly his controversial photo-op at St John’s Church on June 1.
The removal of the combat troops — hundreds of them — made it evident that Trump was forced to backtrack over the decision to deploy soldiers in the protest-hit cities of the country. The troops were stationed at bases near Washington DC as the peaceful protests turned violent, but they were never called to tame the demonstrators. The change in plan over the troops came after Esper conducted internal meetings at the Pentagon, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told the Associated Press. Milley, on his part, said in a letter sent to top military leaders that armed forces will continue protecting Americans' right to 'freedom of speech and peaceful assembly', clearly defying the president’s idea of calling in the troops to confront the protesters. "We all committed our lives to the idea that is America. We will stay true to that and the American people," Milley hand-wrote at the bottom of the letter.
Meanwhile, Trump found opposition from yet another of his former staff members. John Kelly, who served as the White House chief of staff between June 2017 and January 2019, backed former defense secretary Jim Mattis in his fight with Trump. Mattis recently took on the president over his role in the countrywide protests, accusing him of not unifying the country at the time of a crisis. The president hit back at Mattis, calling him "the world’s most overrated General".
Kelly calls Mattis an 'honorable man'
On Thursday, June 4, 70-year-old Kelly defended Mattis by calling him an "honorable man" and slammed Trump over his claim of having fired the former defense secretary in 2018. In an interview to The Washington Post on Thursday, Kelly said: "The president did not fire him. He did not ask for his resignation. The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened or is confused." Trump did not let Kelly go either. In a tweet, Trump said he never felt the need to inform Kelly about how he dealt with Mattis. He said Kelly was never a part of his "inner circle" and took them together saying they wanted to steal the limelight.
"The president tweeted a very positive tweet about Jim until he started to see on Fox News their interpretation of his letter. Then he got nasty. Jim Mattis is an honorable man," Kelly, a former homeland security secretary, said.
Mattis and Kelly completed their office stints around the same time. While Mattis served his final day as the defense secretary on January 1, Kelly lasted a day longer. Kelly was brought in by Trump to restore order in his often chaotic White House but had so many differences with him that the two reportedly were not on talking terms till Kelly’s removal. In a book published by a The Washington Post reporter, Kelly was even quoted as saying that it is "pointless to try to convince him (Trump) of anything". Kelly is set to meet Anthony Scaramucci, another former Trump staff member, for an interview on Friday, June 5, and it is likely that the discussions will have an explosive take on Trump. Scaramucci had served as Trump's director of communications for just 10 days and has an equally sour relation with the president.
That the armed forces don't have the best opinion on Trump at the moment has become abundantly clear in the wake of the protests and the president’s hard response to them. John Allen, a retired Marine general, who led the global coalition against the Islamic State and commanded the American forces in Afghanistan, has warned that Trump's actions could see his country "slide into illiberalism" and mark the beginning of the end of "American experiment". Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen also condemned the act of mobilizing forces to remove peaceful protesters to see Trump's photo-op event through.