Trump Regrets Not 'Immediately' Sending Military to Address Unrest: Book
By: Ryan Pickrell (Business Insider)
... proving once again what a clueless autocrat he really was.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Former President Donald Trump has said he regrets not "immediately" deploying the military into US cities to quash unrest last summer.
"I think if I had it to do again, I would have brought in the military immediately," Trump told Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker in a March interview, according to an excerpt from their new book "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year."
Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in late May 2020, calls for racial justice and condemnation of police brutality quickly turned into protests. Though many were peaceful, some others were not. Unrest in the aftermath of Floyd's murder was seen in numerous cities across the country, from Portland to Washington, DC.
On June 1, 2020, Trump threatened to deploy US troops if states did not call up the National Guard to deal with the protests and, at times, rioting, violence, and destruction.
"If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them," he said in the Rose Garden.
Trump's remarks appeared to indicate that he intended to invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used power that allows the president through executive order to deploy active-duty military troops domestically to address unrest and enforce the law. The measure is widely viewed as a last resort to impose order when a state's forces are insufficient or the unrest threatens the government itself.
At one point, according to Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender's new book "Frankly, We Did Win This Election," Trump tried to put Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley in charge of a military response to the protests, but Milley pushed back, reportedly setting off a profanity-filled shouting match in the Situation Room.
Trump denied such an incident took place, telling Axios it was "fake news."
Bender also reported that Trump wanted to use the military to "beat the f--- out" of protesters, according to CNN, but such aggressive rhetoric was met with resistance by other officials, including Milley.
Amid concerns that Trump planned to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, Mark Esper, then his secretary of defense, caught the White House off guard and publicly announced that he did not support such a move.
"The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations," Esper said at a Pentagon press briefing. "We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act."
Esper said the National Guard was better suited for that mission. Nation Guard troops, in contrast with the active-duty military, train to quell civil unrest with as little force as necessary and typically are residents of the states and regions where they serve.
Immediately afterwards, several outlets reported that the White House was "not happy" with Esper. More recent reporting from The New Yorker revealed that Trump went "apes--t" on Esper in response. Trump later fired his defense secretary after his defeat in the 2020 election.
Trump recently told The New York Times, which reported that aides drafted a proclamation for such an order, that it was never his intention to invoke the Insurrection Act and send active-duty troops into American cities. The Times reported that he was talked out of his plan.
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... a presidential legacy of attempts to willfully violate the US Constitution. what a fucking loser...
please help keep NT's front page free of fascists and white supremacists by voting up this seed and commenting
I need to post here from now on. It's tiresome seeing all the scum on the 'front page'
Three words would have prohibited Trump from deploying regular/federalized military troops on US soil in the manner described. Those three words are Posse Comitatus Act.
that idiot would think that's something kinky said in russian...
You're probably right, but that does not change what I said either.
too bad I deleted the only person that wanted to argue that point.
I would say there were two aspects to Trump ignoring the insurrection for hours.
One , he liked seeing people "fight" for him on national television.
Two, he was preoccupied with obsessing over what Mike Pence was going to do (or not do) to help him overturn the election.
I would also say he wanted to give his supporters at the Capital time to conduct the insurrection. Thus the delay in his TV statement and his delay in getting the necessary troops into proper positions to stop it. JMHO
He probably also regrets not nuking some small country full of brown people while he had the nuclear football.
It's so totally annoying and nothing but deflection when people refer to the largely peaceful protests which have absolutely nothing to do with trumpturds' inciting his mob of domestic terrorists/white supremacists/losers and their failed coup/insurrection.
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Trump is a moron. It's probably impossible to figure out his motive.
Last week the FBI arrested two LEO's, father and son for being part of the insurrection.
I think that Florida now has a lead in the number of scum that took part in the insurrection.
Gen. Milley is obviously a very patriotic American. Trump, just as obviously, is not.