War, coup and frightening chaos – VG

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When Donald Trump lost the presidential election in November last year, civilian and military leaders feared he might spark a military attack on China, or carry out a radical right-wing coup in the United States.

The president was obsessed with the idea that he was the real winner of the election. He says the same thing today. Millions of Republicans believe in Trump’s alternate reality.

Several books describing the final days of the Trump administration have already been published. On Tuesday comes the book “Danger” or “Danger” by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. Some excerpts have already been published. The excerpts paint a frightening picture of a collapsing administration.

General Milley was appointed chief of defense in 2018, when Donald Trump was president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. According to Woodward and Costa, Millie played a significant role in the political drama that unfolded in the United States last fall and winter.

On October 30, just before the presidential election, Milley called his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuqing. It is said that the reason was that US intelligence had caught that the Chinese believed that Trump was planning a possible military attack on them, allegedly creating an international crisis that he would then solve. Its goal was to secure the re-election of the president.

Millie reassured me that the United States did not plan an attack. – If we want to attack, I’ll call you in advance. It wouldn’t be a surprise, as Mielle was said to have told General Li.

The second conversation between the two took place on January 8, two days after Trump supporters stormed Congress to stop approval of the election result. The Chinese were uncomfortable with what they saw as an unstable US government.

– It may seem unstable. This is democracy. We are 100% stable. Mielle assured that everything was fine.

But the defense minister must be deeply concerned. On the same day, he summoned senior officers to remind them of the procedures for using nuclear weapons. As chief of defense, he had to take part in such a decision. Millie is said to have wandered around the room, looked the officers in the eye, and asked them to confirm their understanding of what he had said.

According to the authors of Danger, Milley believed Trump was mentally frail in the aftermath of the election defeat.

When the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, called Millie on January 8, she called Trump insane, long gone:

– Who knows what he might come up with?

It is said that Mielle agreed with everything she said. He assured Pelosi that the defense in this case would not use military force to attack another country, whether with nuclear weapons or anything else.

Others in Trump’s circle are said to have shared Milley’s unease and thought they should take action, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General William Barr.

The book quotes Gina Haspel, the head of the CIA, who picked Trump. – We’re on our way to a radical right-wing coup, she is said to have told Mielle.

Another interesting piece of information in the book is that Vice President Mike Pence requested a conversation with former Vice President Dan Quayle. In 1992, Coyle was in the same position as Pence. He had to preside over the Congress that confirmed that George Bush Sr. had lost the election.

The difference was that Trump, unlike Bush, tried to pressure his deputy to stop or delay approval of the election result. Trump reportedly told Pence that his friendship would end if he didn’t do what he wanted.

Pence asked Quayle if there was any way he could meet Trump’s demands.
– Mike, you have no flexibility. No. zero. Forget about it, Coyle said.

But Pence did what Coyle said. After the vote, Trump is said to have called him a traitor: – I made you what you are. I was nothing.

Congress was stormed. But Trump did not start the war. The former president of Newsmax said this week that if the information in the book is correct, the Secretary of Defense has committed treason. Trump did not even consider attacking China militarily, he said.

Woodward and Costa’s book has already generated debate about the relationship between civil and military power in a time of crisis. The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces.

But what does the defense command do if the commander in chief believes that he is mentally weak? And how far can the chief of defense go in making promises to a foreign power?

President Joe Biden has made it clear that he fully trusts Chief of Defense Milley. But Republican Senator Marco Rubio is demanding his immediate dismissal. Senator Rand Paul will prosecute Milley.

Then there is the recent historical similarity. Richard Nixon’s staff feared for his mental state before he resigned as President in 1974. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger then asked military leaders to contact him and the Secretary of Defense before carrying out an order from the President.

American democracy passed the test this time, too. But when a large minority refuses to recognize the outcome of a democratic election, it shows that the political system is in deep crisis.

Hear more in today’s episode of Giæver and the gang: