President fires defense secretary
An unprecedented move by Trump, who is angry at the Pentagon leader he believes wasn’t loyal enough.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump fired Defense SecretaryMark Esper onMonday, an unprecedented move by a president struggling to accept election defeat and angry at a Pentagon leader he believes wasn’t loyal enough.
The decision was widely expected as Trump had grown increasingly unhappy with Esper over the summer, including sharp differences between them over the use of the military during the civil unrest in June.
But the move could unsettle international allies and Pentagon leadership and injects another element of uncertainty to a rocky transition period as Joe Biden prepares to assume the presidency.
Presidents who win reelection often replace Cabinetmembers, including the secretary of defense, but losing presidents have kept their Pentagon chiefs in place until Inauguration Day to preserve stability in the name of national security.
Trump announced the news in a tweet, saying that “effective immediately” Christopher Miller, the director of theNationalCounterterrorism Center, will serve as acting secretary, sidestepping the department’s No.2-ranking official, Deputy Defense SecretaryDavidNorquist.
“Chris will do a GREAT job!” Trump tweeted. “Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service.”
U.S. defense officials said Miller arrived at the Pentagon in the early afternoon to take over the job, and that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows informed Esper of the firing before
Trump announced the move on Twitter.
Other top defense and Pentagon officials, however, were caught by surprise and learned of the decision through the media. The defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
Trump’s abrupt move to dump Esper triggers questions about what the president may try to do in the next few months before he leaves office, including adjustments in the presence of troops overseas or other national security changes.
The decisionwas quickly condemned by Democratic members of Congress.
“Dismissing politically appointed national security leaders during a transition is a destabilizing move that will only embolden our adversaries and put our country at greater risk,“saidRep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “President Trump’s decision to fire Secretary Esper out of spite is not just childish, it’s also reckless.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, said firing Esper “in the last weeks of a lame duck Presidency serves no purpose and only demonstrates an instability harmful to American national defense.”
Former military leaders also weighed in. Jim Stavridis, a retired Navy admiralwhoserved as a senior aide to Republican Donald Rumsfeld when Rumsfeld was defense secretary, wrote on Twitter that Esper’s
firing made no sense.
“Things are already unstable internationally, and this does not help,” he wrote. “We need to try and create stability in transition time— hopefully opponents will not try and take advantage.”
Biden has not said who he would appoint as defense chief, but is widely rumored to be considering naming the first woman to the post — Michele Flournoy. Flournoy has served multiple times in the Pentagon, starting in the 1990s and most recently as the undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012. She is well known on Capitol Hill as a moderate Democrat and is regarded among U.S. allies and partners as a steady handwho favors strongU.S. military cooperation abroad.
Miller has most recently served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center and before that was a deputy assistant defense secretary and top adviser to Trump on counterterrorism issues. He has a long background with the military, having served as an enlisted infantryman in the Army Reserves and after that as a special forces officer. He also served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
After his retirement from the military, Miller worked as a defense contractor.
Esper’s strained relationship with Trump came close to collapse last summer during protests in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers that triggered a debate within the administration over the proper role of the military in combating domestic unrest.
Esper’s opposition to using active duty troops to help quell protests inWashington, D.C., infuriated Trump, and led to speculation that the defense chief wasprepared to quit if faced with such an issue again.