Former President Donald Trump was reportedly frustrated because his generals weren’t “like the German generals in World War II” and they had failed to offer him total fealty like those Nazi soldiers who served Adolph Hitler, according to a new book about Trump’s time in the White House.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
In a new book by New York Times reporters Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, The Divider: Trump in the White House, the former president and his frequently tense relationship with his generals were detailed alongside other troublesome insights into his scandal-ridden term.
The New Yorker published an excerpt from the book on Monday that recounted the aforementioned exchange where Trump exposed not just his own ignorance of world history and American history, but also a position utterly divorced from the nation’s historic positions against bald fascism and authoritarianism.
“You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals,” Trump told his then-Chief-of Staff John Kelly. (Kelly served from July 2017 until January 2019.)
Kelly, unsure, asked Trump which generals he meant.
“The German generals in World War II,” Trump replied.
Kelly told Trump that Hitler’s generals had actually tried to assassinate the Führer on multiple occasions and were nearly successful but Trump refused to believe him, insisting instead that the Nazi generals were all blindly subservient.
”No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” Trump said.
This, of course, was false.
The excerpt from Baker and Glasser’s book exposed how tense the relationship became between Trump and his generals, beginning in earnest when he was advised against holding a spectacle-ridden military parade to celebrate the Fourth of July.
His Cabinet officials were “bewildered” at the notion, with his then-Defense Secretary James Mattis saying “I’d rather swallow acid” when the parade with tanks and ticker tape was proposed. Kelly and Trump had clashed over the proposal for various reasons, but when Trump mentioned not wanting any parade where soldiers with disabilities were visible, Kelly laced into Trump.
Those who are injured, who had lost limbs or found themselves in wheelchairs for the duration of their lives because of their military services were heroes, he told Trump.
“In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are—and they are buried over in Arlington,” Kelly reportedly remarked.
His son, Lt. Robert M. Kelly, was killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2010 and was interred at Arlington Cemetery. But, according to Baker and Glasser, his chief of staff did not inform Trump of this and instead listened as Trump retorted: “I don’t want them. It doesn’t look good for me.”
When plans for Trump’s Fourth of July parade were later mentioned “sarcastically” during a briefing in the Oval Office with Trump, Kelly, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Paul Selva, a point made to Trump about American principles went soaring over the 45th president’s coiffed head.
Selva told Trump he did not grow up in America, but instead, grew up in Portugal under a dictatorship. Parades in Portugal were about “showing the people who had the guns.”
“And in this country, we don’t do that. It’s not who we are,” Selva said.
The message still wasn’t penetrating for Trump.
So, he didn’t like the idea of a parade then? Trump asked. Selva, according to Baker and Glasser, told the president quite plainly that he did not.
“No. It’s what dictators do,” he said.
The excerpt released in The New Yorker on Monday also offered insights into the often-tenuous experience of Mark Milley. Milley started as the U.S. Army chief of staff and then later served as Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Milley and Trump split ideologically on numerous subjects, including how and when to draw down troops in Afghanistan as well as what position the U.S. military should take towards transgender troops. Trump told Milley he heard he was “weak on transgender,” according to Mattis. Milley insisted he wasn’t weak, he just “didn’t care who sleeps with who.”
The excerpt published in The New Yorker on Monday offers a glimpse too into Milley’s near-daily struggle trying to reconcile his service to Trump and his greater service to the Constitution.
The episode at Lafayette Square in 2020, when Trump had the park violently cleared of protesters with the help of the National Guard, was a breaking point for Milley.
He made the highly photographed walk with Trump and other officials like former Attorney General Bill Barr and then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper from the White House to the church across the square. But he “peeled off” at the last second, not wanting to be present in the photos where Trump was seen holding a Bible up for a few moments before returning to the White House. Tear gas was still hanging in the air and with it, Milley’s sense that he should resign immediately.
In a resignation letter he would never send dated June 8, 2020, Milley blasted Trump for “using the military to create fear in the minds of the people.”
“I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people. The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people,” Milley wrote.
He also slammed Trump for failing to hold the most basic of American ideals: that all are created equal.
“All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or choose not to believe. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what country you came from, what your last name is—what matters is we’re Americans. We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue—the colors that my parents fought for in World War II—means something around the world,” Milley’s draft resignation letter stated. “It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.”
America has “fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism,” he added, noting that between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were “slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships.”
Ultimately, though, Milley believed Trump was “doing great and irreparable harm.” He did not tender the letter. Instead, he took advice from others he trusted. His resignation would be a story that would last but a day. If he could withstand the duration, he could help resist Trump’s worst inclinations.
“Keep the chiefs on board with you and make it clear to the White House that if you go they all go, so that the White House knows this isn’t just about firing Mark Milley. This is about the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff quitting in response,” Robert Gates, a former Defense secretary, told Milley.
Milley did stay, but it did not prevent Jan. 6.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff cooperated with the Jan. 6 committee as it conducted its investigation into the insurrection into the U.S. Capitol and told them, under oath, that he was shocked to learn that day that Trump had failed to send in any backup or support to the Capitol. Police were wildly overrun. Lawmakers, staff, and journalists were forced into hiding. A massive fire had been set on the Capitol steps. A gallows was erected meant to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence.
“You’re the commander in chief. You’ve got an assault going on at the Capitol. And there’s nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?” Milley testified.
In a statement to The New Yorker released Monday, Trump described his generals.
“These were very untalented people and once I realized it, I did not rely on them, I relied on the real generals and admirals within the system,” he said.