Donald Trump proposed firing missiles into Mexico to destroy Mexican drug labs. Then he suggested that he could lie about the source of the missiles and claim the United States was not involved. As The New York Times reports, this news comes from the upcoming book by former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.
Sometimes, there are stories in which it’s difficult to know just where the blame actually falls, or to figure out what part of the story is more infuriating. This little tidbit about Trump wanting to launch missiles into a neighboring country, is far from the first slice of outrageous to come from the pages of Esper’s still to be published book. As Hunter reported on Monday, Trump also told Esper that the military should “just shoot” Black Lives Matter activists. And as Politico noted on Thursday, Trump wanted to order 250,000 troops—more than half the forces in the active service Army—to the border to stop a “caravan” being hyped up on Fox News.
“I think he’s joking,” the former Defense secretary said in the interview with CBS’ Norah O’Donnell set to air on Sunday. “And then I turn around, and I look at him in these deadpan eyes. It’s clear that he is not joking.”
In his book, Esper confirms that he had conversations with Trump in which Russia’s favorite candidate proposed shooting Americans who protest, sending the bulk of the army to the Mexican border, firing a series of missiles into Mexico, and lying about it. Any one of which might seem something worth bringing to the attention of the American public and media. Instead, Esper hung around until Trump fired him after the 2020 election.
And when it comes to informing the public he did what seems to be an unstoppable trend: He saved it for his book.
To Esper’s credit, he was reportedly fired by Trump for reasons that put him on the side of both the law and the angels. As Brandi Buchman reported last November, an internal White House memo was explicit in explaining why the defense secretary had to go.
Esper was fired, according to the memo, because he (among a dozen or so other reasons) barred the display of a Confederate flag on a military installation and because he “publicly opposed” Trump’s call for troops to clear out protesters outside of the White House.
Even so, the incident that is outlined in Friday’s Times should raise eyebrows well above anyone’s hairline.
Mr. Trump asked Mr. Esper at least twice if the military could “shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs.” … When Mr. Esper raised various objections, Mr. Trump said that “we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,” adding that “no one would know it was us.”
Let’s ignore for the moment fact that the Patriot is actually a surface-to-air missile designed to take out incoming enemy missiles or planes, and so could not be used to strike drug labs. Unless Trump thinks there are flying drug labs. Which … maybe. Trump also seems to be unaware of radar, or any other means by which his infallible system of simply lying about the source of the missiles, might be defeated. It also doesn’t seem to have occurred to Trump that, if the United States actually knew the location of these drug labs well enough to hit them with missiles, there were numerous other options that didn’t involve international murder.
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What Trump was proposing—“at least twice”—was a military attack on a neighboring country; an attack in which nationals of that country would definitely be killed. It’s the kind of thing that nations tend to think of as an act of war. See Harbor, Pearl.
If there’s any doubt that Esper’s account is true, Donald Trump Jr. cleared that right up with his usual tact in responding to the Times article.
Surprisingly, taking unilateral military action against a neighbor and ally is a bad thing. Someone at Mar-a-Lago might want to make a note.
As far as why Trump wanted to take this action, Esper was clear that it actually had little or nothing to do with reducing the flow of drugs from Mexico. It was about something far more important.
Mr. Esper describes an administration completely overtaken by concerns about Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, with every decision tethered to that objective.
Trump thought that starting a war with Mexico would be a boost to his campaign. So he asked the military to get moving on that.
That Esper refused on this occasion and on others, is a credit to his understanding of what constitutes both rational and moral policy. However, at this late date, with what seems like a library of other Trump insider books already on the shelves, it’s hard to believe that any revelation, no matter how jaw-dropping, is really going to make a difference. Not for Trump, not for the nation.
In saying no to Trump, Esper did the correct thing. But like so many others publishing “you won’t believe what he said!” books now, the former defense secretary failed to do the right thing at the time, which was to resign and go public.