Biden expresses confidence in general amid concerns over calls to China
WASHINGTON — The country’s senior-most military officer did not bypass his civilian leaders when he called his Chinese counterpart last October and January, his office said Wednesday, as Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, moved to limit the damage from a book that alleges that he secretly called China twice over concerns that his boss at the time, President Donald Trump, might spark a war with Beijing.
Milley’s spokesperson, Col. Dave Butler, said in a statement that “all calls from the chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency,” in a reference to the government national security bureaucracy.
“Gen. Milley continues to act and advise within his authority in the lawful tradition of civilian control of the military and his oath to the Constitution,” the statement said.
Milley’s “calls with the Chinese and others in October and January,” Butler said, “were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability.”
Butler did not speak to the specifics of the conversation, which, according to “Peril,” a new book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, included reassurances that Trump had no plans to attack China as part of an effort to remain in power and that the United States was not collapsing.
“Things may look unsteady,” Milley told Gen. Li Zuocheng of China on Jan. 8, two days after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol to try to stop the cer
tification of his election loss, in the second of two such calls. “But that’s the nature of democracy, Gen. Li. We are 100% steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”
Yet despite those assurances, the book asserts that Milley was so concerned about Trump that he convened a meeting with top commanders later that day to remind them of the procedures for launching a nuclear weapon and that he needed to be involved in such a decision.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Wednesday that there was nothing wrong with that, calling it “completely appropriate for the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the senior military adviser to the president, to want to see the protocols reviewed.” Kirby added that “I see nothing in what I’ve read that would cause any concern.”
President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he had “great confidence in Gen. Milley.”
“The president has complete confidence in his leadership, his patriotism, and his fidelity to our Constitution,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a briefing Wednesday.
But some Republican leaders took to Twitter to express their fury.
“I will be declining this invite to dine with Attempted Coup
Leader and Renowned Critical Race Theorist Mark Milley,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-fla., wrote, posting a photo of an invitation from the National Defense University to a dinner and reception in October where the general is the featured speaker.
It is unlikely the general extended that invite personally; he took Gaetz to task in June during a congressional hearing, after Gaetz criticized military institutions for teaching about systemic racism.
Instead of demurring to the congressman, as military leaders often do during congressional hearings, Milley retorted that he had read Mao, Marx and Lenin and that “doesn’t make me a communist.”
Still, the last thing the Pentagon wants is the appearance that military leaders have gone around their civilian counterparts, even during the tumultuous last months of the Trump presidency, when Trump made clear in a series of meetings, officials said, that he was not averse to using the military to help him remain in power.
Similar to other media reports and books released since Trump left office, “Peril” details how his presidency essentially collapsed in his final months in office, particularly after his election loss and the start of his campaign to deny the results. Top aides — including Milley, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General William Barr — became convinced that they needed to take drastic measures to stop him from trampling on U.S. democracy or setting off an international conflict, and Milley thought that Trump had declined mentally in the aftermath of the election, according to the book.
A senior Department of Defense official said that Esper, in the weeks before he was unceremoniously fired by Trump, also made calls of reassurance to foreign counterparts worried about Trump.