'You can't f***ing talk to me like that': Trump screamed at Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley in the Situation Room when he refused his order to take charge of the crackdown on George Floyd protesters
Former President Donald Trump got in an obscenity-laced screaming match with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley as the president tried to get Milley to take charge of a crackdown on domestic protests last summer.
Trump berated the top military commander and Army General over the president's demand that Milley oversee the effort – which Milley resisted by invoking longstanding constraints on military interference in domestic affairs.
'I said you're in f***ing charge!' Trump yelled at Milley, according to a new Axios excerpt from Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender's book, Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.
'Well, I'm not in charge!' Milley shouted back, according to Bender, further stoking Trump's fury.
'You can't f***ing talk to me like that!' Trump responded.
Former President Donald Trump and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley got into a shouting match after Trump told Milley to take charge of a protest crackdown effort, according to a new book
That led to pronouncements about the legal role of the military in domestic affairs at a time when protesters were breaking out throughout U.S. cities, sometimes clashing with law enforcement.
''Goddamnit. There's a room full of lawyers here. Will someone inform him of my legal responsibilities?' Milley said – in comments he made to others, according to Bender.
'He's right, Mr. President,' Barr injected. 'The general is right.'
The account follows a previous excerpt that recounts Trump telling Milley to 'crack skulls' and 'beat the f--- out' of protesters who took to the streets following the death of George Floyd. And it comes following reports that top Trump administration officials drafted a proclamation that would invoke the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that would call up the military amid the domestic unrest and allow Trump to call up active-duty troops to be deployed in Washington, D.C.
The reported blowup took place in the White House Situation Room, and was also attended by former Attorney General Bill Barr and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
Trump furiously denied the account, with the former president telling Axios through an aide: 'This is totally fake news, it never ever happened. I'm not a fan of Gen. Milley, but I never had an argument with him and the whole thing is false. He never talked back to me. Michael Bender never asked me about it and it's totally fake news.'
He added: 'If Gen. Milley had yelled at me, I would have fired him.' Bender says he presented Trump with a written question about the incident during and that Trump didn't respond. He said it was confirmed by multiple senior administration officials.
Milley apologized after taking part in a photo-op outside St. John's Church in Washington after police cleared Lafayette Square. 'I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics,' he said
The meeting was attended by Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General Bill Barr
Trump rapped Milley at his Ohio rally Saturday night, saying: 'You see these generals lately on television? They are woke.'
The former president also ripped Milley over his testimony that he has studied critical race theory.
'I've read Mao Zedong. I've read Karl Marx. I've read Lenin. That doesn't make me a communist. So what is wrong with understanding — having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?" Milley told Congress following questioning by Trump loyalist Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
'And I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned, noncommissioned officers of being, quote, "woke" or something else, because we're studying some theories that are out there."
Trump called Milley's statement 'pathetic,' while Fox News host Tucker Carlson called referred to Milley as 'stupid' and a 'pig.'
White House aides wrote a draft proclamation to invoke the Insurrection Act as then- President Donald Trump threatened to deploy active-duty troops to Washington D.C. amid protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd, according to a report.
Two senior Trump administration officials told The New York Times that the proclamation was drafted on June 1, 2020 in case Trump moved to deploy active-duty troops in Washington.
That same day, Trump had given a fiery speech in which he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and said he would call up the military if governors did not respond how he wished to the escalating protests, CNN reported at the time.
'If the city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residence, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,' Trump had said in the speech.
Two senior Trump administration officials told The New York Times that the proclamation was drafted on June 1, 2020 - the same day Trump had given a fiery speech in which he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act
Trump said he would call up the military if governors did not respond how he wished to the escalating protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd
Trump 'was aware' that the aides had drafted the document, one former official told The New York Times.
Trump never invoked the act and denied that he had wanted to deploy active-duty troops in a statement to The New York Times.
'It's absolutely not true and if it was true, I would have done it,' Trump said.
The outlet reported that the aides had drafted the proclamation during a 'heated debate' about how to respond to the escalating protests then gripping the nation.
One official said Trump told Attorney General William Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley that he wanted 'thousands' of active-duty troops in Washington D.C.
Three officials, who were not revealed, reportedly talked Trump out of deploying troops to the United Stats capital. However, some staffers reportedly wanted to leave the option of invoking the Insurrection Act open.
Later that same day, Trump made his infamous walk across Lafayette Park to St. John's Church where he posed holding a Bible as law enforcement and protesters clashed near the White House.
The revelations in The New York Times came after CNN obtained excerpts from a new book by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender.
In the book, Bender revealed that Milley was a 'lone voice' in repeatedly pushing back on Trump's desires to use the military to stop civil unrest around the country.
People react after learning the sentencing of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin outside the Hennepin County Government Center on Friday
Protesters gather on May 30, 2020 in New York City to protest the death of George Floyd
In the book, 'Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost,' Bender reports that Trump pushed for the military to intervene and 'crack skulls' at civil rights protests across the nation in 2020.
While watching protests unfold in places like Seattle and Portland, Trump highlighted cops' physical exchanges with protestors and told his administration that's what he wanted to see, CNN reported.
'That's how you're supposed to handle these people,' Trump told his top law enforcement and military officials, Bender wrote, according to CNN. 'Crack their skulls!'
Trump also told his team that he wanted the military to go in and 'beat the f--k out' of civil rights protestors, Bender wrote, according to CNN.
CNN reported other examples of Trump telling the military to shoot protestors. At one point, a Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller compared the protests to third-world countries, which angered Milley, Bender wrote.
Milley, who commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, said, 'Shut the f--k up, Stephen,' CNN reported from one of the excerpts.
Bender's book showed Milley was concerned that Trump was going to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to deploy the military in cases of rebellion or terrorist attack.
Milley reportedly saw the protests and unrest as a political issue - not a military one - and was strongly against implementing the Insurrection Act.
CNN reported that Milley made a 'concerted effort' to stay in Washington as much as possible during Trump's final months in office.
In one excerpt, Milley reportedly pointed to a picture of former President Abraham Lincoln's portrait hanging just to the right of Trump.
'That guy had an insurrection,' Milley said. 'What we have, Mr. President, is a protest.'
After Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, some of his supporters returned to calling on the president to invoke the Insurrection Act, Politico reported.
Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, prominent MAGA figures who led 'stop the steal' efforts claiming without evidence that the 2020 election had been rigged against Trump, were among those who voiced support of invoking the act, according to the outlet.
How Insurrection Act gave Trump the power to deploy military to US streets without approval of governors
Under the US Constitution, governors generally have the authority to maintain order within state borders. This principle is reflected in a law called the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally bars the federal military from participating in domestic law enforcement.
The Insurrection Act, which dates to the early 1800s, creates an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.
It permits the president to send in US forces to suppress a domestic insurrection that has hindered the normal enforcement of US law.
COULD TRUMP HAVE SENT IN TROOPS WITHOUT A GOVERNOR'S APPROVAL?
Yes. The law lays out a scenarios in which the president is required to have approval from a state's governor or legislature, and also instances where such approval is not necessary, said Robert Chesney, a professor of national security law at the University of Texas.
HAS IT BEEN INVOKED BEFORE?
Yes. The Insurrection Act has been invoked on dozens of occasions through U.S. history. Since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, its use has become 'exceedingly rare', according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.
The Insurrection Act was last used in 1992, when the acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers in the beating of black motorist Rodney King led to deadly riots.
Before that, it was invoked in 1989 during widespread looting in St Croix, Virgin Islands, after Hurricane Hugo.
In 2006 the Bush administration suggested using the act to intervene in Louisiana's response to Hurricane Katrina - despite the governor's refusal - but that move was deemed unconstitutional.
The act was subsequently amended in 2007 to explicitly allow any emergency hindering law enforcement to be a cause for use of the military.
In 2008, the amendment was repealed after the governors of all 50 states issued a joint statement against it.
- Reporting by Megan Sheets for DailyMail.com and Reuters