Advertising

An MSNBC contributor and former four-star U.S. Army general said on Tuesday he was worried that former President Donald Trump was launching “a coup” when he fired top civilian Pentagon leaders following the 2020 election.

During a segment on Katy Tur Reports about excerpts of an upcoming book by The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa that show Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley was concerned about war with China, Barry McCaffrey said, “The worst thing that ever happened to General Milley’s entire flippin’ life is to be the chairman of the JCS during this cancerous period of a lawless president.”

“Let me also put it in context. The chairman of JCS, the service four-star chiefs are not commanders. They are advisors,” he continued. “The only authority to give operational orders to the U.S. Armed Forces comes from the president and the Secretary of Defense, no one else.”

“Remember at that time, Trump had fired all the top civilian officials in the Pentagon, and we had a minor functionary retired lieutenant colonel sycophant of Trump as the secretary of defense,” said McCaffrey, referring to Christopher Miller, who succeeded Defense Secretary Mark Esper six days after the 2020 election and served until Joe Biden was sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

“We were at a perilous moment. I thought this was the opening moves to a coup. I think the other thing, put it in context, the chairman of JCS, who has a

Foreign Service officer political advisor, routinely talks to all his counterparts globally, both friendly and adversarial. It’s part of the stability of deterrence,” said McCaffrey. “Now having said that, look, we were in trouble. There’s just no question that Trump was, in my view, acting mentally unstable, erratic, violating the law. He was about to fire the CIA director [Gina Haspel]. So it was a pretty tricky moment and I think his place in history is going to be a pretty fabled one.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.

Tags: Barry McCaffrey, Donald Trump, Gen. Mark Milley, Katy Tur Reports