Top U.S. general Mark Milley was concerned Trump would stage a coup, new book says

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, has compared the Jan. 6 rioters to the Nazis that the Allies fought in the Second World War. Apparently, Milley views former President Donald Trump himself as a threat to American democracy and was concerned that the former president could stage a coup.

According to New York magazine, the general, who has been criticized for his embrace of critical race theory and other woke ideas within the military, claims that Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Fuhrer” when he dared to contest the results of the presidential election last year. 

In an excerpt from I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year, an upcoming book by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, the top general claims that shortly before the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Trump had led the country to the brink of its own “Reichstag moment,” referencing the 1933 incident which Adolf Hitler used to seize power in Germany. 

The authors write: 

…the general’s worries grew rapidly as the president plunged the nation into chaos following Election Day. Seven days later, Milley got a call from “an old friend” with an explicit warning that Trump and his allies were trying to “overturn the government.” Milley was confident that any attempts by Trump to hold on to power would be thwarted, because the military wouldn’t go along. “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed,” he told aides. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”

The book claims that Milley described the Jan. 6 riot participants as “Nazis,” stating “These guys are Nazis, they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II.”

New York reports that Milley told former First Lady Michelle Obama on Biden’s inauguration day that he was happy with Biden taking charge of the country over Trump, telling her that “no one has a bigger smile today than I do. You can’t see it under my mask but I do.” 

Milley’s hostility towards Trump was corroborated in another book that documented an incident in which Milley, while Trump was in office, snapped at Senior White House Adviser Stephen Miller for saying that the Black Lives Matter riots were destroying America. 

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Milley was infuriated by Miller’s claim that the “cities are burning” and promptly told him to “shut the f—k up,” apparently incensed by his remarks about the “mostly peaceful” George Floyd protests.

More recently, Milley courted the ire of conservatives when he told Congress that he viewed the events on Jan. 6 as the culmination of “white rage” and that he found it offensive to be accused of being “woke” for “studying some theories that are out there” by recommending military officers read books like Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility and Ibram Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist.

Ian Miles Cheong

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Ian Miles Cheong is a freelance writer, graphic designer, journalist and videographer. He’s kind of a big deal on Twitter.

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