When the U.S. Chief of Staff was preparing for a Trumpist coup
U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley at Naval Station Norfolk July 15, 2021, in Norfolk, Virginia.
AP - Steve Helber
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
In a forthcoming book, two
Pulitzer Prize-winning
Washington Post
journalists
reveal the fears of the US military high command as the end of Donald Trump's term approaches.
Publicity
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A scenario of Banana Republic in the heart of the White House.
Everything is playing out in the chaotic final weeks of the Trump presidency.
The outgoing contests his defeat and his chief of staff Mark Milley fears that he or his supporters will decide to stay in power by force.
According to the book by journalists Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, Mark Milley then evokes behind the scenes a “
Reichstag moment
” at the White House by comparing Donald Trump's rhetoric to that of Adolf Hitler.
The risk of a Trumpist coup was quite credible to him and he decided to oppose it, reports our correspondent in San Francisco,
Eric de Salves
.
"
They can try, but they are unlikely to succeed,
" General Milley would then have declared.
“
You can't do this without the army, we have the guns,
” he said.
Mark Milley goes so far as to bring other generals of the Navy and Air Force together and asks them to be ready.
Another revelation from the book: Mark Milley arguably dissuaded Trump from launching a series of
strikes against Iran
.
"
If you do that you'll have a fucking war on your hands,
" he allegedly told her.
The American Chief of Staff then described Donald Trump as "
unbalanced
" and as "
a classic autocratic leader who has nothing more to lose
".
"
If I had wanted to carry out a coup, General Mark Milley would have been one of the last people I would have called
", retorted Donald Trump in a press release, explaining that he had appointed him to the head of the staff quite simply because "
the most overpriced general on the planet, James Mattis, could not stand it
".
"
I often act contrary to the advice of people I do not respect
," explained the former president, adding that he had also lost all respect for General Milley.
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United States
Donald trump