Donald Trump called them “my generals.” They call him a threat to democracy: ANALYSIS

After winning the 2016 election, Donald Trump surrounded himself with strong, decorated military officers who had fought wars and earned the right to have stars on their shoulders.

In January 2017, during a lunch with congressional leaders immediately after his inauguration, Trump called out the military leaders he had placed in his Cabinet — specifically John Kelly and James Mattis, both retired four-star Navy generals.

He called them “my generals” and stated: “These are central castings. If I make a movie, I would choose your generals.” He boasted to congressional leaders that the men “are going to keep us safe like this.”

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Trump soon discovered that the retired military officers he appointed were not real are generals after all; they had all sworn an oath to protect the Constitution – they had not pledged allegiance to Trump.

Those generals had taken the extraordinary, though not unprecedented, step of serving as political appointees. They would later take a much more extraordinary step: They would emerge as the fierce critics of the president they once served, warning that he poses a threat to the country and the Constitution they had sworn to defend against all enemies, domestic and as abroad.

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It’s hard to imagine a harsher condemnation of a president than the words we recently heard from the military officers who served Trump. Mark Milley, whom Trump appointed as the nation’s top military officer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called him “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person for this country” in comments to journalist Bob Woodward .

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John Kelly, who served Trump as Secretary of Homeland Security and then as White House Chief of Staff, has now told the New York Times that Trump “falls within the common definition of fascist” after he suggested using the military to back up his to engage political opponents. – calling them “the enemy from within”. That came after he confirmed to CNN last year that he told The Atlantic in 2020 that Trump called American heroes who died in battle “suckers” and “losers.”

Not to mention that Kelly told the Times that Trump had spoken positively about Adolf Hitler.

Three years earlier, it was James Mattis who delivered a scathing assessment of the president he had served for two years as Secretary of Defense. “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who doesn’t try to unite the American people — or even pretend to try,” Mattis wrote in June 2020. “Instead, he tries to divide us.” Mattis said Trump did that. a mockery of the Constitution.”

In 2020, Trump responded to Mattis, calling him “the most overrated general in the world.” Last September, Trump accused Milley of treason, posting on his social media platform: “In times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” And on Wednesday, Trump’s campaign said Kelly had “deceived himself” and was “currently suffering from a debilitating form of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The harsh assessments of the former generals would be alarming coming from anyone, but they are especially extraordinary coming from retired four-star officers who served in the military all their adult lives and lived by the credo that the military stays out of politics.

I have spoken privately to retired military officers – colleagues of Mattis, Milley and Kelly – about retired four-star officers making such politically charged assessments of a former president and a current presidential candidate. They share many of the concerns about Trump, but are concerned about the military leadership, even the retired leadership, which appears to be taking political sides. That’s private criticism. And I suspect it’s a concern that Mattis, Milley and Kelly all share. It’s probably why they waited so long to publicly say what they said.

The criticism from outside the military world is much more public. Kelly in particular is now facing criticism from those who say he should have spoken out sooner. Why did he wait so long to tell the world about the threat posed by Trump? Mattis and Milley have also faced similar criticism. If they think Trump is such a threat to America, why don’t they take a more public stand, critics ask? Why don’t they join the campaign against him?

Maybe they should all take a more public stand. Maybe they should make speeches across the country about the behavior they witnessed when Trump was in the Oval Office and their concerns about what he is saying now.

Maybe they should spend the last few days before Election Day doing interviews on cable TV.

But without doing that, the words of the men Trump called “my generals” are now at the center of this most consequential and hotly contested presidential election. They all served their country. They are all still convinced that the military should stay out of politics. Their reluctance to speak, the economy of their words, and the fact that they all spoke reluctantly and purposefully make those words all the more powerful.

Jonathan Karl, who covered the White House during the Trump years, is ABC News’ chief correspondent in Washington.

Donald Trump called them “my generals.” They call him a threat to democracy: ANALYSIS originally appeared on abcnews.go.com