In the wake of the 2020 election, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley apparently feared President Trump would attempt a coup and compared President Donald Trump and his supporters to Adolf Hitler and Nazi brownshirts, according to a new book.
Written by The Washington Post's Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, I Alone Can Fix It purports to shine new light on how General Milley and other military brass feared and prepared for a showdown with their commander in chief.
General Milley "was so shaken that then-President Donald Trump and his allies might attempt a coup or take other dangerous or illegal measures after the November election that Milley and other top officials informally planned for different ways to stop Trump," according to excerpts of the book obtained by CNN.
Milley felt obligated to be "on guard" for a potential coup attempt after Election Day, and reportedly said "they may try, but they're not going to f**king succeed."
"Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest," claims the book, "possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military."
"You can't do this without the military" the book says Milley told his deputies. "You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI" because "we're the guys with the guns."
The book also says Milley saw President Trump as "the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose," calling the situation "a Reichstag moment" and "gospel of the Führer." Milley viewed the pro-Trump Million MAGA March as "the modern American equivalent of 'brownshirts in the streets.'"
CNN's report quotes a Department of Defense staffer close to Milley as responding to the forthcoming book's claims by saying Milley "tried his hardest to actively stay out of politics."
Donald Trump reacted to the book's claims about General Milley with a statement saying he "never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our government," calling the idea "so ridiculous." "If I was going to do a coup," Trump explained, "one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley."
"Never during my Administration did Milley display what he is showing now. He was not 'woke,'" Trump continued. "Actually I don't believe he ever was, but the way I look at Milley, he's just a better politician than a general, trying to curry favor with the Radical Left and the absolute crazy people espousing a philosophy which will destroy our country!"
As Townhall reported last month, General Milley made himself into a defender of the Left's divisive Critical Race Theory in a congressional hearing during which he said "I want to understand 'white rage,'" adding he finds it "offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned, non-commissioned officers of being 'woke.'"