A litany of opinions from people who worked directly for him on Trump’s criminal term as president
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Here is Trump’s former Secretary of Defense:
Brett Baier: Do you think Donald Trump was a threat to democracy?”
Mark Esper: “I think that given the events of January 6th, given how he has undermined the election results, he incited people to come to D.C., stirred them that morning, and failed to call them off. To me, that threatens our democracy.”
Baier: “So, yes?”
Esper: “What else can you conclude, Bret?”
There’s a lot more. Firing missiles at Mexico,
shooting protesters, the possibility that Trump would use the military to stay in office, threats to attack Iran…
I know we have become jaded and numb about all of this. But this is former SecDEF, who
told The New York Times a few days ago that Trump is an “unprincipled person who, given his self-interest, should not be in the position of public service.”
So, at the risk of reminding you of things you may have memory-holed, Esper joins a
loooong line of former Trump cabinet members and aides who have issued similar (belated) warnings. Back in March, my colleague
Amanda Carpenter put together a roundup of All the President’s Men who saw Trump’s presidency up close and broke with him. Even a partial list (that doesn’t include his vice president or his
disingenuous attorney general) is…. remarkable.
- Two (!) Secretaries of Defense
- Secretary of State
- Two (!) Chiefs of Staff
- Two (!) National Security Advisors
- Secretary of the Navy
- Communications Director
- Press Secretary
- Cabinet Members, including the Secretary of Transportation
Some highlights:
Former Trump Defense Secretary James Mattis: “When I was basically directed to do something that I thought went beyond stupid to felony stupid, strategically jeopardizing our place in the world and everything else, that’s when I quit.”
Former Trump Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: NBC News reported Tillerson called Trump a “moron” after a July 2017 meeting, a charge Tillerson has never denied. In an interview with
Foreign Policy conducted before the January 6 riot, Tillerson said:
“His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this…We’re in a worse place today than we were before he came in, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
Former Chief of Staff John Kelly: The retired four-star Maine general who served as Trump’s second Chief of Staff. On Jan. 7, 2021,
Kelly said he supported using the Twenty-fifth Amendment to remove Trump from office. Kelly said:
“I think that the Cabinet should meet and have a discussion. I don't think that it'll happen, but I think the Cabinet should meet and discuss this because the behavior yesterday and in the weeks and months before that has just been outrageous from the President. . . . What happened on Capitol Hill yesterday is a direct result of his poisoning the minds of people with the lies and the frauds.”
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