Military Leaders Speak Out Against Trump
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.” General James Mattis
Retired Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton explains why he cannot support Donald Trump
Col. Wilkerson: ‘An overwhelming victory for Biden is the best way to stop this tyrant’
Trump is no longer hiding that he’s a brazen authoritarian, so desiring of control and power that he’s willing to turn our once peaceful cities into war zones.
Retired general issues dire warning after Trump’s threat
Retired General John Allen discusses his warning that President Trump’s military threats could be “the beginning of the end of the American experiment.”
Trump Criticized By Former Defense Secretary, Former Military Leaders
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis wrote a takedown of President Trump in a new op-ed and a group of retired four-star military officers also recently criticized Trump’s leadership.
James Mattis tears into Trump, calls him a threat to the constitution
In an interview with the Atlantic, Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis denounced Trump for dividing the country: “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”
Former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis broke his silence on President Donald Trump Wednesday (June 3), roundly denouncing a military response to the country’s civil unrest in a statement published by the Atlantic.
World Leaders Condemn President Trump’s Protest Response
Trump, Barr Building ‘Thugocracy’ With Secret Police
Steve Schmidt, former senior Republican strategist, talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump putting Bill Barr in charge of an unmarked collection of federal police. Aired on 6/5/2020.
Trump wanted to deploy 10,000 troops to D.C. to deal with protests
Trump vows to help oust GOP senator after criticism: ‘Get any candidate ready’
Donald Trump wrote Thursday that he would campaign against Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski over her praise of comments made by Gen. James Mattis, who the previous day lashed out at the president over threats to use the U.S. military to put down nationwide protests over the death of African-American George Floyd.
Earlier in the day Thursday, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski told reporters on Capitol Hill that she agreed with the remarks made by Mattis, Trump’s former defense secretary, who said he was “angry and appalled” by Trump’s response to the protests over Floyd’s killing.
We are seeing more Republicans and former military leaders becoming more vocal about their differences with President Trump, but what does this really mean for the country and upcoming election? Former Republican Strategist Steve Schmidt joins Stephanie Ruhle to break it down.
Former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that President Donald Trump has “drifted away” from the Constitution, adding to a growing list of former top military officials who have strongly criticized the President’s response to the nationwide protests surrounding the police killing of George Floyd.
“We have a Constitution. And we have to follow that Constitution. And the President has drifted away from it,” Powell, a retired general who served under President George W. Bush, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
The comments from Powell, the first African American secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, add to a growing list of rebukes made in recent days by former top officials who have expressed discontent with Trump’s strongman approach to the protests sparked by the death of Floyd, a black man who was killed in late May by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark A. Milley, says he was wrong to accompany President Donald Trump on a walk through Lafayette Square that ended in a photo op at a church.
More Military Leaders Speak Out Against Trump’s Protest Response
Former Homeland Secretary Jeh Johnson and retired Four-Star Army General Barry McCaffrey join Andrea Mitchell to discuss the continued criticisms from military leaders against Trump’s response to protests within the country, particularly in the nation’s capital. Aired on 06/08/2020.
Retired Adm. Mike Mullen on US military leaders speaking out against Trump
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen joins Chris Wallace on ‘Fox News Sunday.’
4-Star U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey say Trump is a “Serious Threat to our National Security”
Former commander of US ground forces in Iraq blasts Trump as ‘racist’
When it came to Donald Trump’s presidency, retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez bit his tongue for years. Every time Trump took another step the retired general found offensive — the attack on Muslim Gold Star parents, Charlottesville, DACA, et al. — Sanchez restrained himself and made no public comments.
This month’s developments, including the Lafayette Square scandal, led him to believe he had to step up and speak up. As David Freed wrote for The Atlantic yesterday:
“I believe the president is a racist,” he told me. “The statement has to be made.” For a former officer of Sanchez’s rank to openly brand the president a bigot — as he does in a 1,322-word statement on racial injustice — is unprecedented, military historians say.
“The overtly racist comments and discriminatory actions of our current President,” Sanchez wrote, “have convinced me that this administration does not actually view racial diversity as a pillar of American strength, and that it is choosing to actively ignore many elements of our Constitution.”
Freed noted that Sanchez, the retired former commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has become “the first high-ranking military officer to call out the president for racism.”
Sanchez is not, however, alone among retired military leaders condemning Trump. Indeed, his public concerns come just two weeks after retired Adm. Bill McRaven, the former commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, perhaps best known as the Navy SEAL who oversaw the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, expressing related criticisms.
“This fall, it’s time for new leadership in this country,” McRaven said, adding, “President Trump has shown he doesn’t have the qualities necessary to be a good commander in chief…. The country needs to move forward without him at the helm.”
As regular readers know, in recent weeks, the public has heard related Trump criticisms from former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and former Secretary of State Colin Powell — who have eight stars on their shoulders between them.
Retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis and retired Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, also spoke out in the wake of the Lafayette Square debacle. Around the same time, the public heard from retired three-star Admiral Joseph Maguire, who worked for Trump as an acting director of National Intelligence, and who publicly aligned himself with the criticisms of Trump levied by Mattis and Mullen.
They were joined by retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who also spoke out against Trump’s divisive politics.
89 former defense officials say they are ‘alarmed’ by Trump’s threat to use the military to end nationwide unrest
Dozens of former defense officials, including a handful former secretaries of defense, spoke out in one voice against President Donald Trump and his response to the nationwide protests in an op-ed published in The Washington Post Friday.
89 former defense officials say they are ‘alarmed’ by Trump’s threat to use the military to end nationwide unrest.
Dozens of former defense officials, including a handful former secretaries of defense, spoke out in one voice against President Donald Trump and his response to the nationwide protests in an op-ed published in The Washington Post Friday.
