Unhinged Trump ‘was a nuclear war threat’
America’s most senior military commander took secret steps to limit Donald Trump’s ability to launch nuclear weapons while he was president and even set up a back channel to his counterpart in China because he feared Mr Trump was unstable during his final days in office, a book claims.
Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, “was certain Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election” and could “go rogue”, the book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward and his coauthor Robert Costa says.
It details shocking moves by Mr Trump, including a secret memo he allegedly signed to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan by January 15 – a revelation that undermines Mr Trump’s attacks on Joe Biden’s Afghanistan policy.
General Milley established a back channel to his counterpart in China to calm nerves about a potential attack after the Capitol riot on January 6, the book claims.
He also called a meeting of senior Pentagon staff in his office on January 8 to ensure they included him in any order to fire a nuclear missile.
National security officials feared Mr Trump might try to “wag the dog”, referring to a satirical film in which presidential aides provoke a war to distract from domestic woes – in Mr Trump’s case his election defeat.
“You never know what a president’s trigger point is,” General Milley told staff, according to Peril, the third inside look at the Trump presidency by Woodward, who helped to reveal the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon.
Speaking to military officials in charge of the National Military Command Centre, the Pentagon’s war room, General Milley told them not to take orders from anyone unless he was involved.
General Milley told then CIA director Gina Haspel to “aggressively watch everything”. When Mr Trump refused to concede in November 2020, Ms Haspel warned General Milley, according to the book: “We are on the way to a right-wing coup. The whole thing is insanity. He is acting like a six-year-old with a tantrum.” She feared he would launch an attack on Iran.
Soon after the election, General Milley found Mr Trump had signed a military order to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by January 15. No one on the national security team knew about it, and General Milley was able to have it overturned.