“Why can’t you be like the German generals?” Mr. Trump told John Kelly, his chief of staff, before the question in an obscene manner, according to an excerpt from “The Divider: Trump in the White House,” by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, published online from The New Yorker on Monday. morning. (Mr. Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times; Ms. Glasser is a staff writer for The New Yorker.) The quote portrays Mr Trump as deeply disillusioned with his top military officers, whom he saw as insufficiently loyal or obedient to him. In the conversation with Mr. Kelly, which took place years before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill, the authors write, the chief of staff told Mr. Trump that Germany’s generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.” Mr. Trump was dismissive, according to the quote, apparently unaware of the World War II history that Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star general, knew all too well. “No, no, no, they were completely loyal to him,” the president replied,” according to the book’s authors. “In his version of history, the generals of the Third Reich were completely subservient to Hitler. this was the model he wanted for his army. Kelly told Trump there were no such American generals, but the president was determined to test the proposal.” Much of the excerpt focuses on Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s top military official, under Mr. Trump. When the president offered him the job, General Milley told him, “I’ll do anything you ask of me.” But he quickly shot down the president. General Milley’s frustration with the president came to a head on June 1, 2020, when Black Lives Matter protesters filled Lafayette Square near the White House. Mr. Trump demanded that the military be sent in to clear the protesters, but General Milley and other top aides refused. In response, Mr Trump shouted: “You’re all losers!” according to the passage. “Turning to Milley, Trump said, ‘Can’t you shoot them? Just shoot them in the foot or something?” the authors write. After the National Guard and police cleared the square, Gen. Milley briefly joined the president and other aides in walking through the empty park so Mr. Trump could be photographed in front of a church on the other side. The authors said General Milley later viewed his decision to join the president as a “miscalculation that would haunt him forever, a ‘Damascus moment,’” as he later put it. A week after that incident, General Milley wrote—but never delivered—a scathing resignation letter, accusing the serving president of politicizing the military, “destroying the international order,” not valuing diversity and embracing tyranny, the dictatorship and extremism that members of the military had sworn to fight. “I believe you have done great and irreparable harm to my country,” the general wrote in the letter, which has not been previously disclosed and was published in full by The New Yorker. Gen. Milley wrote that Mr. Trump did not honor those who had fought against fascism and the Nazis during World War II.
Donald Trump, after the presidency
The former president remains a powerful force in Republican politics.
“It is now obvious to me that you do not understand this world order,” General Milley wrote. “You don’t understand what war was. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles we fought against. And I can’t be a part of that.” But Gen. Milley ultimately decided to stay put so he could ensure the military could serve as a bulwark against an increasingly out-of-control president, according to the book’s authors. “I’m just going to fight him,” General Milley told his staff, according to the New Yorker quote. “The challenge, as he saw it, was to stop Trump from doing more damage while also acting in a way that was consistent with his obligation to carry out his leader’s orders. “If they want to court-martial me or put me in jail, let them do it.” In addition to the revelations about Gen. Milley, the excerpt from the book reveals new details about Mr. Trump’s interactions with top military and national security officials and chronicles the dramatic efforts of the former president’s senior aides to avert a domestic or international crisis. within weeks. after Mr. Trump lost his bid for re-election. In the summer of 2017, the book excerpt reveals, Mr. Trump returned from the Bastille Day parade in Paris and told Mr. Kelly that he wanted one of his own. But the president told Mr. Kelly: “Look, I don’t want anybody injured at the parade. That doesn’t look good to me,” the authors write. “Kelly couldn’t believe what she was hearing,” the quote continues. “These are the heroes,” he told Trump. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are — and they’re buried in Arlington.” Mr Trump replied: “I don’t want them. Doesn’t look good to me,” according to the authors. The quote underscores how many of the president’s top aides have tried to cover up their reputations in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack. Like Gen. Milley, who has largely avoided publicly criticizing Mr. Trump, they now want to iron out their differences with him by working with book authors and other journalists. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has never publicly disputed Mr. Trump’s wild campaign claims and has rarely criticized him since, has privately dismissed allegations of fraud embraced by Mr. Trump and his advisers. On the evening of Nov. 9, 2020, after the media called the race for Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Pompeo called General Milli and asked to see him, according to the transcript. During a conversation at General Milley’s kitchen table, Mr. Pompeo was blunt about his opinion of the people around the president. “The crazy people have got it,” Mr Pompeo told General Milley, according to the authors. Behind the scenes, they write, Mr. Pompeo had quickly accepted that the election was over and refused to promote overturning it. “He was completely against it,” recalled a senior State Department official. Pompeo cynically justified this jarring contrast between what he said in public and in private. “It was important to him not to get fired at the end, to be there until the bitter end,” the senior official said, according to the quote. The authors detail what they call an “emergency agreement” in the weeks after the election between Mr. Pompeo and General Milley to hold daily morning phone calls with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in an effort to make sure that the president did not take dangerous actions. “Pompeo and Miley soon began calling them ‘land the plane’ calls,” the authors write. “Our job is to land this plane safely and have a peaceful transfer of power on January 20,” Milley told his staff. “This is our obligation to this nation.” There was a problem though. “Both engines out, landing gear stuck. We are in a state of emergency.” The Jan. 6 hearings on Capitol Hill revealed that several of the former president’s top aides privately pushed back against Mr. Trump’s campaign denials, even as some refused to do so publicly. Several, including Pat A. Cipollone, the former White House counsel, testified that they tried — without success — to convince the president that there was no evidence of substantial fraud. In the excerpt, the authors say that General Milley concluded that Mr. Cipollone was “a force that was ‘trying to keep guardrails around the president.’ The general also believed that Mr. Pompeo was “genuinely trying to achieve a peaceful handover of power,” the authors write. But they write that General Milley “was never quite sure what to do with Meadows. Was the chief of staff trying to land the plane or grab it?’ Gen. Milley is not the only top official who has considered resigning, the authors write, in response to the president’s actions. The excerpt describes private conversations among the president’s national security team as they discussed what to do if the president attempted to take measures they believed they could not uphold. The authors report that General Milley consulted with Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense and former CIA chief Mr. Gates’ advice was blunt, the authors write: “Keep the leaders with you and make it clear to the White House that if you go, everyone goes, so the White House knows this isn’t just about firing Mark Milley. This is the resignation of the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff in response.” The quote makes it clear that Mr. Trump didn’t always get the yes-men he wanted. During an exchange from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump asked Gen. Paul Selva, an Air Force officer and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, what he thought of the president’s desire for a military parade in the nation’s capital on July 4. . General Selva’s response, which has not been reported before, was blunt and not what the president wanted to hear, according to the book’s authors. “I didn’t grow up in the United States, I actually grew up in Portugal,” General Selva said. “Portugal was a dictatorship — and the parades were about showing people they had guns. And in this country we don’t…
title: “Trump Asked His Aide Why His Generals Couldn T Be Like Hitler The Book Says " ShowToc: true date: “2022-10-28” author: “Kathleen Chester”
“Why can’t you be like the German generals?” Mr. Trump told John Kelly, his chief of staff, before the question in an obscene manner, according to an excerpt from “The Divider: Trump in the White House,” by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, published online from The New Yorker on Monday. morning. (Mr. Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times; Ms. Glasser is a staff writer for The New Yorker.) The quote portrays Mr Trump as deeply disillusioned with his top military officers, whom he saw as insufficiently loyal or obedient to him. In the conversation with Mr. Kelly, which took place years before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill, the authors write, the chief of staff told Mr. Trump that Germany’s generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.” Mr. Trump was dismissive, according to the quote, apparently unaware of the World War II history that Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star general, knew all too well. “No, no, no, they were completely loyal to him,” the president replied,” according to the book’s authors. “In his version of history, the generals of the Third Reich were completely subservient to Hitler. this was the model he wanted for his army. Kelly told Trump there were no such American generals, but the president was determined to test the proposal.” Much of the excerpt focuses on Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s top military official, under Mr. Trump. When the president offered him the job, General Milley told him, “I’ll do anything you ask of me.” But he quickly shot down the president. General Milley’s frustration with the president came to a head on June 1, 2020, when Black Lives Matter protesters filled Lafayette Square near the White House. Mr. Trump demanded that the military be sent in to clear the protesters, but General Milley and other top aides refused. In response, Mr Trump shouted: “You’re all losers!” according to the passage. “Turning to Milley, Trump said, ‘Can’t you shoot them? Just shoot them in the foot or something?” the authors write. After the National Guard and police cleared the square, Gen. Milley briefly joined the president and other aides in walking through the empty park so Mr. Trump could be photographed in front of a church on the other side. The authors said General Milley later viewed his decision to join the president as a “miscalculation that would haunt him forever, a ‘Damascus moment,’” as he later put it. A week after that incident, General Milley wrote—but never delivered—a scathing resignation letter, accusing the serving president of politicizing the military, “destroying the international order,” not valuing diversity and embracing tyranny, the dictatorship and extremism that members of the military had sworn to fight. “I believe you have done great and irreparable harm to my country,” the general wrote in the letter, which has not been previously disclosed and was published in full by The New Yorker. Gen. Milley wrote that Mr. Trump did not honor those who had fought against fascism and the Nazis during World War II.
Donald Trump, after the presidency
The former president remains a powerful force in Republican politics.
“It is now obvious to me that you do not understand this world order,” General Milley wrote. “You don’t understand what war was. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles we fought against. And I can’t be a part of that.” But Gen. Milley ultimately decided to stay put so he could ensure the military could serve as a bulwark against an increasingly out-of-control president, according to the book’s authors. “I’m just going to fight him,” General Milley told his staff, according to the New Yorker quote. “The challenge, as he saw it, was to stop Trump from doing more damage while also acting in a way that was consistent with his obligation to carry out his leader’s orders. “If they want to court-martial me or put me in jail, let them do it.” In addition to the revelations about Gen. Milley, the excerpt from the book reveals new details about Mr. Trump’s interactions with top military and national security officials and chronicles the dramatic efforts of the former president’s senior aides to avert a domestic or international crisis. within weeks. after Mr. Trump lost his bid for re-election. In the summer of 2017, the book excerpt reveals, Mr. Trump returned from the Bastille Day parade in Paris and told Mr. Kelly that he wanted one of his own. But the president told Mr. Kelly: “Look, I don’t want anybody injured at the parade. That doesn’t look good to me,” the authors write. “Kelly couldn’t believe what she was hearing,” the quote continues. “These are the heroes,” he told Trump. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are — and they’re buried in Arlington.” Mr Trump replied: “I don’t want them. Doesn’t look good to me,” according to the authors. The quote underscores how many of the president’s top aides have tried to cover up their reputations in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack. Like Gen. Milley, who has largely avoided publicly criticizing Mr. Trump, they now want to iron out their differences with him by working with book authors and other journalists. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has never publicly disputed Mr. Trump’s wild campaign claims and has rarely criticized him since, has privately dismissed allegations of fraud embraced by Mr. Trump and his advisers. On the evening of Nov. 9, 2020, after the media called the race for Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Pompeo called General Milli and asked to see him, according to the transcript. During a conversation at General Milley’s kitchen table, Mr. Pompeo was blunt about his opinion of the people around the president. “The crazy people have got it,” Mr Pompeo told General Milley, according to the authors. Behind the scenes, they write, Mr. Pompeo had quickly accepted that the election was over and refused to promote overturning it. “He was completely against it,” recalled a senior State Department official. Pompeo cynically justified this jarring contrast between what he said in public and in private. “It was important to him not to get fired at the end, to be there until the bitter end,” the senior official said, according to the quote. The authors detail what they call an “emergency agreement” in the weeks after the election between Mr. Pompeo and General Milley to hold daily morning phone calls with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in an effort to make sure that the president did not take dangerous actions. “Pompeo and Miley soon began calling them ‘land the plane’ calls,” the authors write. “Our job is to land this plane safely and have a peaceful transfer of power on January 20,” Milley told his staff. “This is our obligation to this nation.” There was a problem though. “Both engines out, landing gear stuck. We are in a state of emergency.” The Jan. 6 hearings on Capitol Hill revealed that several of the former president’s top aides privately pushed back against Mr. Trump’s campaign denials, even as some refused to do so publicly. Several, including Pat A. Cipollone, the former White House counsel, testified that they tried — without success — to convince the president that there was no evidence of substantial fraud. In the excerpt, the authors say that General Milley concluded that Mr. Cipollone was “a force that was ‘trying to keep guardrails around the president.’ The general also believed that Mr. Pompeo was “genuinely trying to achieve a peaceful handover of power,” the authors write. But they write that General Milley “was never quite sure what to do with Meadows. Was the chief of staff trying to land the plane or grab it?’ Gen. Milley is not the only top official who has considered resigning, the authors write, in response to the president’s actions. The excerpt describes private conversations among the president’s national security team as they discussed what to do if the president attempted to take measures they believed they could not uphold. The authors report that General Milley consulted with Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense and former CIA chief Mr. Gates’ advice was blunt, the authors write: “Keep the leaders with you and make it clear to the White House that if you go, everyone goes, so the White House knows this isn’t just about firing Mark Milley. This is the resignation of the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff in response.” The quote makes it clear that Mr. Trump didn’t always get the yes-men he wanted. During an exchange from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump asked Gen. Paul Selva, an Air Force officer and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, what he thought of the president’s desire for a military parade in the nation’s capital on July 4. . General Selva’s response, which has not been reported before, was blunt and not what the president wanted to hear, according to the book’s authors. “I didn’t grow up in the United States, I actually grew up in Portugal,” General Selva said. “Portugal was a dictatorship — and the parades were about showing people they had guns. And in this country we don’t…
