Trump wanted to call 10k troops to DC to crush protests but defense secy Mark Esper, General Milley blasted him
President Donald Trump wanted to deploy nearly 10,000 active-duty soldiers to the streets of Washington D.C. in an effort to quash George Floyd protesters, it has been revealed. A senior defense official on Saturday, June 6, said that Trump, on Monday, June 1, had requested a large number of troops during a 'contentious' meeting with Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in the Oval Office.
The official, on conditions of anonymity, told NBC News that Esper, however, attempted to steer the president away "from a buildup of federal forces" by asking for state governors to send their National Guard members to Washington DC instead. Trump, the same day, appeared for a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, where he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, allowing him the authority to deploy federal forces within its own borders to suppress civilian disorder.
Despite the push for National Guard members, the defense secretary eventually resorted to airlifting 1,600 active-duty troops to bases in the D.C. region "to respond if needed. The federal troops were sent to the national capital despite 5,000 National Guard troops already present there at the time. Hundreds of combat soldiers with the 82nd Airborne were ordered to leave the region on Thursday, June 4. The troops were sent back shortly after Trump was slammed for threatening to deploy the military in the region.
US top military officer, General Mark Milley, also reportedly got into a "shouting match" with the president after Trump expressed his wish to end the current protests by bringing in active military forces, another anonymous official told The New Yorker. General Milley reportedly stayed firm to Trump's demands, and responded, saying: "I'm not doing that. That's for law enforcement." It is not yet clear whether the conversation occurred in the same White House meeting on Monday, June 1.
Milley, later on Thursday, June 4, publicly slammed Trump over his proposal to deploy US military in the country's own streets. He reportedly sent a letter to top military leaders, stating that the military will continue to protect Americans' right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.
"As members of the Joint Force — comprised of all races, colors, and creeds — you embody the ideals of our Constitution," Milley wrote in the letter. "Please remind all of your troops and leaders that we will uphold the values of our nation, and operate consistent with national laws and our own high standards of conduct at all times. We all committed our lives to the idea that is America," the General said in the hand-written letter. "We will stay true to that and the American people."
Former defense secretary James Mattis also condemned President Trump in a scathing op-ed on Wednesday, June 3, denouncing his leadership in the face of countrywide protests.
"We must reject any thinking of our cities as a 'battlespace' that our uniformed military is called upon to 'dominate'," he wrote. "At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict — a false conflict — between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part."