For these shocking tasks, the old Watergate revealer Bob Woodward is in an upcoming book written together with Robert Costa.
The most highly motivated title is "Risk" ("Peril").
According to the authors, US Secretary of Defense General Mark Milley in early January instructed employees not to act if Trump had ordered the use of nuclear weapons.
He secretly called General Li Zuocheng, a member of China's Central Military Commission, to assure China that the United States was not on the warpath.
Two calls
The Washington Post, where Woodward and Costa are journalists, and CNN have published excerpts from the book, which show that Milley contacted Li on two occasions.
Partly on October 30, 2020, just before Trump's election defeat, and partly on January 8, 2021, two days after the violent storming of the Capitol Congress building in Washington.
"General Li, I want to assure you that the US government is stable and everything will be fine," Milley said in the October interview, according to the book.
- We will not attack or carry out any armed actions against you.
"Everything is fine"
After the uprising in the US capital in January, Milley picked up the phone again.
At the time, he was worried that Trump was out of control and wanted to reassure his colleague Li in Beijing.
- We are 100 percent stable.
Everything is fine.
But democracy can sometimes be haphazard, Milley said according to the book.
His fears were such that the closest top militaries were ordered to agree with him first if Trump were to attempt a nuclear attack.
Milley also discussed Trump's irrational behavior with the heads of the CIA and NSA and advised them to be vigilant, the book's author writes.
Trump has in a statement responded to the information and calls it "fake news".
According to NBC, the former president says that "I never even thought of attacking China - and China knows that.
Those who have fabricated this story are insane, and those who spread it are just as bad. ”