Mediaite’s Colby Hall: Lost in Gen. Milley Story is that the TOP Ranking Military Officer Believed Trump Was Unstable

Mediaite’s Colby Hall sat down with NewsNation’s Leland Vittert on Tuesday night to discuss the bombshell revelations Bob Woodward’s latest book.

The new book, titled Peril and co-written by Woodward’s Washington Post colleague Robert Costa, claimed that Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, was so concerned by Donald Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior following the 2020 election that he took steps to prevent the then-president from launching nuclear weapons, and allegedly called his Chinese counterpart to assure “that the United States would not strike.”

Discussing the text on Tuesday night, Hall noted that the media was focusing on Milley’s alleged actions and, therefore, overlooking the fact that Milley “the most decorated, the most powerful, highest-ranking member of the military,” who was also appointed by Trump himself,  found the former president “unstable” and “unhinged.”

“That’s a story unto itself. Now the follow-up to that, on the nuclear weapons, ostensibly keeping them from the commander in chief, that’s a big story,” Hall said on Tuesday. “I happen to believe, based on what I’ve read, is that he basically said, ‘We need to stick to the process,’ right? So he was not necessarily subverting, in this instance at least, the power of the commander in chief, which is a big deal.”

Hall went on to explain that Milley was urging everyone to “play it by the book” in order to ensure that nobody in the Trump administration would “go rogue,” including the then-president.

Vittert then pointed to CNN’s headline on the new text, which read, “Woodward/Costa book: Worried Trump could ‘go rogue,’ Milley took secret action to protect nuclear weapons.”

“You can read the excerpt and think that this was not an action to protect nuclear weapons, but this was an action to remind people of procedure,” Vittert argued.

Hall chalked up the headline to CNN’s desire to get clicks, admitting he’s been guilty of the same practice, as reporters often use headlines to sum up the story in an attention-grabbing manner.

“His dealings, however, with China, I think is a much, much bigger deal than if it’s true that he just insisted that the nuclear codes, the potential launching of a nuclear device, was going by the process, that seems — certainly that passes the smell test to me,” he added. “But the ongoing conversation with his Chinese counterpart, basically subverting the power and the leadership of the commander in chief, that’s a big, big no-no.”

Watch above, via NewsNation.