Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley reportedly screamed at former President Donald Trump during an argument the two leaders had about how to respond to the racial justice protests following George Floyd’s death last May.
The incident occurred in the Situation Room, where Milley refused to accept Trump’s request of deploying the U.S. military to Washington D.C. as a means of dealing with the crowds protesting Floyd’s murder, according to the new book Frankly, We Did Win This Election by Michael Bender.
Trump aggressively pushed to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and shouted, “I said you’re in f—ing charge.” Milley looked to the other officials, including former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Attorney General William Barr, to help “inform” Trump of his “legal responsibilities” concerning the U.S. military on domestic land.
Trump later claimed the event never took place. He said that Milley “never talked back to me” and if the general “had yelled at me, I would have fired him.”
This is not the only instance the former president used profane language to give orders in an official capacity. Trump told officials and law enforcement officers to “beat the f— out” of protestors and to “just shoot them” on multiple occasions.
Milley expressed his regret for attending Trump on his walk to St. John’s Church after protestors were forcibly removed from outside the White House. He apologized for creating “a perception of the military [being] involved in domestic politics” by accompanying the former president.
The general recently said he wants to “understand white rage” as a white man himself in congressional testimony.
