{"id":3019,"date":"2024-10-20T02:17:45","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T02:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/analysis-military-leaders-who-served-under-trump-sound-the-alarm-about-him-winning-a-second-presidency-cnn-politics\/"},"modified":"2024-10-20T02:17:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T02:17:45","slug":"analysis-military-leaders-who-served-under-trump-sound-the-alarm-about-him-winning-a-second-presidency-cnn-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/analysis-military-leaders-who-served-under-trump-sound-the-alarm-about-him-winning-a-second-presidency-cnn-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Military leaders who served under Trump sound the alarm about him winning a second presidency | CNN Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n <\/span>
\n CNN<\/span>
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\n <\/cite>\n<\/p>\n

\n Former President Donald Trump\u2019s suggestion that the US military should be\u00a0used to deal with\u00a0\u201cthe enemy from within\u201d<\/a>\u00a0on Election Day has reignited concerns about what he might ask US forces to do if he wins a second term as commander in chief.\n <\/p>\n

\n And it is senior military leaders who served under him that have most clearly sounded the alarm about Trump.\n <\/p>\n

\n The former chairman of the\u00a0Joint Chiefs\u00a0of Staff,\u00a0Gen. Mark\u00a0Milley, told\u00a0Bob Woodward\u00a0in\u00a0his new book\u00a0\u201cWar\u201d\u00a0that the former president \u201cis the most dangerous person to this\u00a0country \u2026 A fascist to the core.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n And on Thursday on The Bulwark podcast<\/a>, Woodward said Gen. Jim\u00a0Mattis,\u00a0who served as Trump\u2019s defense secretary,\u00a0had emailed him to say that he agreed with the assessment that Milley had provided Woodward. On the podcast, Woodward said the thrust of Mattis\u2019 email about Trump was \u201cLet\u2019s make sure we don\u2019t try to downplay the threat, because the threat is high.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump has long had a boyish fascination with the\u00a0military,<\/a> idolizing\u00a0World War II generals George Patton and Douglas MacArthur.\u00a0As a teenager, he\u00a0reveled in his stint at a military-style boarding school in New York.\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite that\u00a0fascination,\u00a0Trump took multiple deferments<\/a> to avoid service in the Vietnam War.\n <\/p>\n

\n When he became president,\u00a0Trump staffed his\u00a0cabinet\u00a0with senior generals. He appointed Mattis, a retired four-star\u00a0general\u00a0to head the Pentagon; his chief\u00a0of staff\u00a0John Kelly\u00a0was\u00a0another\u00a0retired\u00a0four-star\u00a0general,\u00a0and two\u00a0of his\u00a0national security advisers\u00a0were three-star generals,\u00a0Michael Flynn and H.\u00a0R.\u00a0McMaster.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump\u00a0loves\u00a0the pomp and ceremony\u00a0of the military\u00a0and lobbied\u00a0for a massive\u00a0Kremlin-style\u00a0parade<\/a> in Washington,\u00a0DC while,\u00a0he was in office. In the end,\u00a0the\u00a0parade\u00a0never happened.\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite Trump\u2019s bromance with the military,\u00a0senior retired generals and admirals\u00a0haven\u2019t loved him back. Some\u00a0even\u00a0seem to think that\u00a0it is the former president who is the\u00a0real \u201cenemy within.\u201d\u00a0<\/s>\n <\/p>\n

\n Going back as far as four years ago, Mattis, provided a statement<\/a> to The Atlantic magazine\u00a0that\u00a0\u201cDonald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people\u2014does\u00a0not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Similarly, Kelly told CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper<\/a> last year that Trump is \u201ca person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In\u00a0McMaster\u2019s\u00a0book<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cAt War with Ourselves,\u201d\u00a0a memoir\u00a0of his time working at the Trump White\u00a0House, McMaster wrote that\u00a0in the aftermath of\u00a0Trump\u2019s\u00a02020 electoral defeat,\u00a0Trump\u2019s\u00a0\u201cego and love of self\u2026 drove him to abandon his oath to \u2018support and defend the Constitution,\u2019 a president\u2019s highest obligation.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who revolutionized Joint\u00a0Special\u00a0Operations Command, the unit responsible for killing Osama bin Laden in\u00a02011, wrote\u00a0an op-ed<\/a> in The\u00a0New York Times three\u00a0weeks\u00a0ago\u00a0saying\u00a0he is voting for Vice President\u00a0Kamala\u00a0Harris\u00a0because of her\u00a0\u201ccharacter.\u201d Unstated in\u00a0his\u00a0op-ed was\u00a0McChrystal\u2019s assessment of\u00a0Trump, though in the past, McChrystal\u00a0has said\u00a0Trump\u00a0is\u00a0\u201cimmoral\u201d and \u201cdishonest.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The leader of the bin Laden\u00a0operation was Adm. Bill\u00a0McRaven,\u00a0who\u00a0in 2020\u00a0wrote\u00a0an\u00a0op-ed\u00a0<\/a>in the\u00a0Washington\u00a0Post\u00a0about Trump,\u00a0saying,\u00a0\u201cwhen presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security \u2014 then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In early June 2020,\u00a0former\u00a0Chairman of\u00a0the\u00a0Joint Chiefs\u00a0Admiral Mike Mullen\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in The Atlantic that he was \u201csickened\u201d to see peaceful protestors\u00a0who were protesting the recent murder by police of George Floyd\u00a0\u201cforcibly and violently\u201d removed from around the White House.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s hard to think of any American president who has earned the opprobrium of\u00a0so\u00a0many senior officers.\n <\/p>\n

\n That isn\u2019t to say that\u00a0Trump\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0have some fans among\u00a0\u201chis\u201d generals.\u00a0While Trump was in office, New America, a research institution where I work, compiled public\u00a0statements<\/a> for and against Trump by\u00a0retired and\u00a0active-duty\u00a0flag officers. We found\u00a0that\u00a0five\u00a0times more\u00a0flag officers,\u00a0255,\u00a0were critical of Trump,\u00a0while 54\u00a0supported\u00a0the Trump administration.\n <\/p>\n

\n One\u00a0of Trump\u2019s fans is\u00a0Lt. Gen. Keith\u00a0Kellogg,\u00a0who\u00a0served as national\u00a0security\u00a0advisor to Vice President Mike Pence.\u00a0Kellogg\u00a0appears in\u00a0Woodward\u2019s\u00a0new\u00a0book\u00a0\u201csecretly\u201d meeting with Israeli\u00a0Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u00a0earlier\u00a0this year. After the trip,\u00a0Kellogg\u00a0told Trump, \u201cThey are\u00a0not going to go along with a\u00a0cease-fire.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Kellogg is\u00a0one of the few senior\u00a0advisers\u00a0in the Trump White House who didn\u2019t resign or get fired during Trump\u2019s term in office.\u00a0Given his longstanding loyalty to Trump, Kellogg\u00a0will\u00a0likely return\u00a0to\u00a0some senior role\u00a0if\u00a0Trump\u00a0wins\u00a0in November.\n <\/p>\n

\n If Trump\u00a0won the election,\u00a0he wouldn\u2019t be\u00a0commander\u00a0in chief until January 20,\u00a0so he couldn\u2019t order\u00a0the US military to do anything on Election Day,\u00a0as he suggested to Fox News.\u00a0But\u00a0if Trump were\u00a0to win the White House \u2013 which is\u00a0a\u00a0coin flip\u00a0right now\u00a0given the close race \u2013\u00a0as commander in chief\u00a0and with a\u00a0pliable\u00a0secretary\u00a0of\u00a0defense,\u00a0he could order the\u00a0Pentagon to\u00a0do pretty much anything he wanted. According to senior officers who served under him,\u00a0that would be\u00a0a\u00a0troubling\u00a0prospect.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Former President Donald Trump\u2019s suggestion that the US military should be\u00a0used to deal with\u00a0\u201cthe enemy from within\u201d\u00a0on Election Day has reignited concerns about what he might ask US forces to do if he wins a second term as commander in chief. And it is senior military leaders who served under him that have<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump-election-news"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/c-gettyimages-1058562984.jpg?c=16x9&q=w_800,c_fill","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}