Trump's Love-Hate-- Mostly Hate-- Relationship With The U.S. Military

Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a long and fascinating excerpt from A Very Stable Genius, the about-to-be-released (Tuesday) new book by Post reporters Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig. The excerpt is really good and you'll enjoy reading it, especially in light of Trump's own relationship with the military. Remember, Trump was a draft-dodging chicken hawk who has been extremely disrespectful to the military over the years and has, since becoming "president," endlessly tried using and manipulating the military for his own purposes and personal aggrandizement.

There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters. Its more common name is “the Tank.” The Tank resembles a small corporate boardroom, with a gleaming golden oak table, leather swivel armchairs and other mid-century stylings. Inside its walls, flag officers observe a reverence and decorum for the wrenching decisions that have been made there.

Hanging prominently on one of the walls is The Peacemakers, a painting that depicts an 1865 Civil War strategy session with President Abraham Lincoln and his three service chiefs-- Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, and Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. One hundred fifty-​­two years after Lincoln hatched plans to preserve the Union, President Trump’s advisers staged an intervention inside the Tank to try to preserve the world order.

By that point, six months into his administration, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had grown alarmed by gaping holes in Trump’s knowledge of history, especially the key alliances forged following World War II. Trump had dismissed allies as worthless, cozied up to authoritarian regimes in Russia and elsewhere, and advocated withdrawing troops from strategic outposts and active theaters alike.

Trump organized his unorthodox worldview under the simplistic banner of “America First,” but Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn feared his proposals were rash, barely considered, and a danger to America’s superpower standing. They also felt that many of Trump’s impulsive ideas stemmed from his lack of familiarity with U.S. history and, even, where countries were located. To have a useful discussion with him, the trio agreed, they had to create a basic knowledge, a shared language.

So on July 20, 2017, Mattis invited Trump to the Tank for what he, Tillerson, and Cohn had carefully organized as a tailored tutorial. What happened inside the Tank that day crystallized the commander in chief’s berating, derisive and dismissive manner, foreshadowing decisions such as the one earlier this month that brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. The Tank meeting was a turning point in Trump’s presidency. Rather than getting him to appreciate America’s traditional role and alliances, Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses.

The episode has been documented numerous times, but subsequent reporting reveals a more complete picture of the moment and the chilling effect Trump’s comments and hostility had on the nation’s military and national security leadership.

Just before 10 a.m. on a scorching summer Thursday, Trump arrived at the Pentagon. He stepped out of his motorcade, walked along a corridor with portraits honoring former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and stepped inside the Tank. The uniformed officers greeted their commander in chief. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. sat in the seat of honor midway down the table, because this was his room, and Trump sat at the head of the table facing a projection screen. Mattis and the newly confirmed deputy defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, sat to the president’s left, with Vice President Pence and Tillerson to his right. Down the table sat the leaders of the military branches, along with Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon was in the outer ring of chairs with other staff, taking his seat just behind Mattis and directly in Trump’s line of sight.

Mattis, Cohn, and Tillerson and their aides decided to use maps, graphics, and charts to tutor the president, figuring they would help keep him from getting bored. Mattis opened with a slide show punctuated by lots of dollar signs. Mattis devised a strategy to use terms the impatient president, schooled in real estate, would appreciate to impress upon him the value of U.S. investments abroad. He sought to explain why U.S. troops were deployed in so many regions and why America’s safety hinged on a complex web of trade deals, alliances, and bases across the globe.

An opening line flashed on the screen, setting the tone: “The post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation.” Mattis then gave a 20-minute briefing on the power of the NATO alliance to stabilize Europe and keep the United States safe. Bannon thought to himself, “Not good. Trump is not going to like that one bit.” The internationalist language Mattis was using was a trigger for Trump.

“Oh, baby, this is going to be fucking wild,” Bannon thought. “If you stood up and threatened to shoot [Trump], he couldn’t say ‘postwar rules-based international order.’ It’s just not the way he thinks.”

For the next 90 minutes, Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn took turns trying to emphasize their points, pointing to their charts and diagrams. They showed where U.S. personnel were positioned, at military bases, CIA stations, and embassies, and how U.S. deployments fended off the threats of terror cells, nuclear blasts, and destabilizing enemies in places including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Korea Peninsula, and Syria. Cohn spoke for about 20 minutes about the value of free trade with America’s allies, emphasizing how he saw each trade agreement working together as part of an overall structure to solidify U.S. economic and national security.

Trump appeared peeved by the schoolhouse vibe but also allergic to the dynamic of his advisers talking at him. His ricocheting attention span led him to repeatedly interrupt the lesson. He heard an adviser say a word or phrase and then seized on that to interject with his take. For instance, the word “base” prompted him to launch in to say how “crazy” and “stupid” it was to pay for bases in some countries.

Trump’s first complaint was to repeat what he had vented about to his national security adviser months earlier: South Korea should pay for a $10 billion missile defense system that the United States built for it. The system was designed to shoot down any short- and medium-range ballistic missiles from North Korea to protect South Korea and American troops stationed there. But Trump argued that the South Koreans should pay for it, proposing that the administration pull U.S. troops out of the region or bill the South Koreans for their protection.

“We should charge them rent,” Trump said of South Korea. “We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.”

Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said, and they owed the United States a lot of money after not living up to their promise of paying their dues.

“They’re in arrears,” Trump said, reverting to the language of real estate. He lifted both his arms at his sides in frustration. Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers by allowing allies to avoid their obligations.

“We are owed money you haven’t been collecting!” Trump told them. “You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business.”

Mattis wasn’t trying to convince the president of anything, only to explain and provide facts. Now things were devolving quickly. The general tried to calmly explain to the president that he was not quite right. The NATO allies didn’t owe the United States back rent, he said. The truth was more complicated. NATO had a nonbinding goal that members should pay at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their defenses. Only five of the countries currently met that goal, but it wasn’t as if they were shorting the United States on the bill.

More broadly, Mattis argued, the NATO alliance was not serving only to protect western Europe. It protected America, too. “This is what keeps us safe,” Mattis said. Cohn tried to explain to Trump that he needed to see the value of the trade deals. “These are commitments that help keep us safe,” Cohn said.

Bannon interjected. “Stop, stop, stop,” he said. “All you guys talk about all these great things, they’re all our partners, I want you to name me now one country and one company that’s going to have his back.”

Trump then repeated a threat he’d made countless times before. He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama had struck in 2015, which called for Iran to reduce its uranium stockpile and cut its nuclear program.

“It’s the worst deal in history!” Trump declared.

“Well, actually . . .,” Tillerson interjected.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement. “They’re cheating. They’re building. We’re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.”

Before they could debate the Iran deal, Trump erupted to revive another frequent complaint: the war in Afghanistan, which was now America’s longest war. He demanded an explanation for why the United States hadn’t won in Afghanistan yet, now 16 years after the nation began fighting there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump unleashed his disdain, calling Afghanistan a “loser war.” That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military leaders at the table but also the men and women in uniform sitting along the back wall behind their principals. They all were sworn to obey their commander in chief’s commands, and here he was calling the war they had been fighting a loser war.

“You’re all losers,” Trump said. “You don’t know how to win anymore.”

Trump questioned why the United States couldn’t get some oil as payment for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. “We spent $7 trillion; they’re ripping us off,” Trump boomed. “Where is the fucking oil?”

Trump seemed to be speaking up for the voters who elected him, and several attendees thought they heard Bannon in Trump’s words. Bannon had been trying to persuade Trump to withdraw forces by telling him, “The American people are saying we can’t spend a trillion dollars a year on this. We just can’t. It’s going to bankrupt us.”

“And not just that, the deplorables don’t want their kids in the South China Sea at the 38th parallel or in Syria, in Afghanistan, in perpetuity,” Bannon would add, invoking Hillary Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables” reference to Trump supporters.

Trump mused about removing General John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in charge of troops in Afghanistan. “I don’t think he knows how to win,” the president said, impugning Nicholson, who was not present at the meeting.

Dunford tried to come to Nicholson’s defense, but the mild-mannered general struggled to convey his points to the irascible president.

“Mr. President, that’s just not . . .,” Dunford started. “We’ve been under different orders.”

Dunford sought to explain that he hadn’t been charged with annihilating the enemy in Afghanistan but was instead following a strategy started by the Obama administration to gradually reduce the military presence in the country in hopes of training locals to maintain a stable government so that eventually the United States could pull out. Trump shot back in more plain language.

“I want to win,” he said. “We don’t win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we’re not winning anymore.”

Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn’t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.

“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass.

Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”

For a president known for verbiage he euphemistically called “locker room talk,” this was the gravest insult he could have delivered to these people, in this sacred space. The flag officers in the room were shocked. Some staff began looking down at their papers, rearranging folders, almost wishing themselves out of the room. A few considered walking out. They tried not to reveal their revulsion on their faces, but questions raced through their minds. “How does the commander in chief say that?” one thought. “What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?”

This was a president who had been labeled a “draft dodger” for avoiding service in the Vietnam War under questionable circumstances. Trump was a young man born of privilege and in seemingly perfect health: six feet two inches with a muscular build and a flawless medical record. He played several sports, including football. Then, in 1968 at age 22, he obtained a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that exempted him from military service just as the United States was drafting men his age to fulfill massive troop deployments to Vietnam.

Tillerson in particular was stunned by Trump’s diatribe and began visibly seething. For too many minutes, others in the room noticed, he had been staring straight, dumbfounded, at Mattis, who was speechless, his head bowed down toward the table. Tillerson thought to himself, “Gosh darn it, Jim, say something. Why aren’t you saying something?”

But, as he would later tell close aides, Tillerson realized in that moment that Mattis was genetically a Marine, unable to talk back to his commander in chief, no matter what nonsense came out of his mouth.

The more perplexing silence was from Pence, a leader who should have been able to stand up to Trump. Instead, one attendee thought, “He’s sitting there frozen like a statue. Why doesn’t he stop the president?” Another recalled the vice president was “a wax museum guy.” From the start of the meeting, Pence looked as if he wanted to escape and put an end to the president’s torrent. Surely, he disagreed with Trump’s characterization of military leaders as “dopes and babies,” considering his son, Michael, was a Marine first lieutenant then training for his naval aviator wings. But some surmised Pence feared getting crosswise with Trump. “A total deer in the headlights,” recalled a third attendee.

Others at the table noticed Trump’s stream of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by a president who had not. They felt sick to their stomachs. Tillerson told others he thought he saw a woman in the room silently crying. He was furious and decided he couldn’t stand it another minute. His voice broke into Trump’s tirade, this one about trying to make money off U.S. troops.

“No, that’s just wrong,” the secretary of state said. “Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.”

Tillerson’s father and uncle had both been combat veterans, and he was deeply proud of their service.

“The men and women who put on a uniform don’t do it to become soldiers of fortune,” Tillerson said. “That’s not why they put on a uniform and go out and die . . . They do it to protect our freedom.”

There was silence in the Tank. Several military officers in the room were grateful to the secretary of state for defending them when no one else would. The meeting soon ended and Trump walked out, saying goodbye to a group of servicemen lining the corridor as he made his way to his motorcade waiting outside. Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn were deflated. Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard.

“He’s a fucking moron,” the secretary of state said of the president.

The plan by Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn to train the president to appreciate the internationalist view had clearly backfired.

“We were starting to get out on the wrong path, and we really needed to have a course correction and needed to educate, to teach, to help him understand the reason and basis for a lot of these things,” said one senior official involved in the planning. “We needed to change how he thinks about this, to course correct. Everybody was on board, 100 percent agreed with that sentiment. [But] they were dismayed and in shock when not only did it not have the intended effect, but he dug in his heels and pushed it even further on the spectrum, further solidifying his views.”

A few days later, Pence’s national security adviser, Andrea Thompson, a retired Army colonel who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq, reached out to thank Tillerson for speaking up on behalf of the military and the public servants who had been in the Tank. By September 2017, she would leave the White House and join Tillerson at Foggy Bottom as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs.

The Tank meeting had so thoroughly shocked the conscience of military leaders that they tried to keep it a secret. At the Aspen Security Forum two days later, longtime NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked Dunford how Trump had interacted during the Tank meeting. The Joint Chiefs chairman misleadingly described the meeting, skipping over the fireworks.

“He asked a lot of hard questions, and the one thing he does is question some fundamental assumptions that we make as military leaders-- and he will come in and question those,” Dunford told Mitchell on July 22. “It’s a pretty energetic and an interactive dialogue.”

One victim of the Tank meeting was Trump’s relationship with Tillerson, which forever after was strained. The secretary of state came to see it as the beginning of the end. It would only worsen when news that Tillerson had called Trump a “moron” was first reported in October 2017 by NBC News.

Trump once again gathered his generals and top diplomats in December 2017 for a meeting as part of the administration’s ongoing strategy talks about troop deployments in Afghanistan in the Situation Room, a secure meeting room on the ground floor of the West Wing. Trump didn’t like the Situation Room as much as the Pentagon’s Tank, because he didn’t think it had enough gravitas. It just wasn’t impressive.

But there Trump was, struggling to come up with a new Afghanistan policy and frustrated that so many U.S. forces were deployed in so many places around the world. The conversation began to tilt in the same direction as it had in the Tank back in July.

“All these countries need to start paying us for the troops we are sending to their countries. We need to be making a profit,” Trump said. “We could turn a profit on this.”

Dunford tried to explain to the president once again, gently, that troops deployed in these regions provided stability there, which helped make America safer. Another officer chimed in that charging other countries for U.S. soldiers would be against the law.

“But it just wasn’t working,” one former Trump aide recalled. “Nothing worked.”

Following the Tank meeting, Tillerson had told his aides that he would never silently tolerate such demeaning talk from Trump about making money off the deployments of U.S. soldiers. Tillerson’s father, at the age of 17, had committed to enlist in the Navy on his next birthday, wanting so much to serve his country in World War II. His great-uncle was a career officer in the Navy as well. Both men had been on his mind, Tillerson told aides, when Trump unleashed his tirade in the Tank and again when he repeated those points in the Situation Room in December.

“We need to get our money back,” Trump told his assembled advisers.

That was it. Tillerson stood up. But when he did so, he turned his back to the president and faced the flag officers and the rest of the aides in the room. He didn’t want a repeat of the scene in the Tank.

“I’ve never put on a uniform, but I know this,” Tillerson said. “Every person who has put on a uniform, the people in this room, they don’t do it to make a buck. They did it for their country, to protect us. I want everyone to be clear about how much we as a country value their service.”

Tillerson’s rebuke made Trump angry. He got a little red in the face. But the president decided not to engage Tillerson at that moment. He would wait to take him on another day.

Later that evening, after 8:00, Tillerson was working in his office at the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters, preparing for the next day. The phone rang. It was Dunford. The Joint Chiefs chairman’s voice was unsteady with emotion. Dunford had much earlier joked with Tillerson that in past administrations the secretaries of state and Defense Department leaders wouldn’t be caught dead walking on the same side of the street, for their rivalry was that fierce. But now, as both men served Trump, they were brothers joined against what they saw as disrespect for service members. Dunford thanked Tillerson for standing up for them in the Situation Room.

“You took the body blows for us,” Dunford said. “Punch after punch. Thank you. I will never forget it.”

Tillerson, Dunford, and Mattis would not take those body blows for much longer. They failed to rein in Trump’s impulses or to break through what they regarded as the president’s stubborn, even dangerous insistence that he knew best. Piece by piece, the guardrails that had hemmed in the chaos of Trump’s presidency crumpled.

In March 2018, Trump abruptly fired Tillerson while the secretary of state was halfway across the globe on a sensitive diplomatic mission to Africa to ease tensions caused by Trump’s demeaning insults about African countries. Trump gave Tillerson no rationale for his firing, and afterward acted as if they were buddies, inviting him to come by the Oval Office to take a picture and have the president sign it. Tillerson never went.

Mattis continued serving as the defense secretary, but the president’s sudden decision in December 2018 to withdraw troops from Syria and abandon America’s Kurdish allies there-- one the president soon reversed, only to remake 10 months later-- inspired him to resign. Mattis saw Trump’s desired withdrawal as an assault on a soldier’s code. “He began to feel like he was becoming complicit,” recalled one of the secretary’s confidants.

The media interpretation of Mattis’ resignation letter as a scathing rebuke of Trump’s worldview brought the president’s anger to a boiling point. Trump decided to remove Mattis two months ahead of the secretary’s chosen departure date. His treatment of Mattis upset the secretary’s staff. They decided to arrange the biggest clap out they could. The event was a tradition for all departing secretaries. They wanted a line of Pentagon personnel that stretched for a mile applauding Mattis as he left for the last time. It was going to be “yuge,” staffers joked, borrowing from Trump’s glossary.

But Mattis would not allow it.

“No, we are not doing that,” he told his aides. “You don’t understand the president. I work with him. You don’t know him like I do. He will take it out on Shanahan and Dunford.”

Dunford stayed on until September 2019, retiring at the conclusion of his four-year term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One of Dunford’s first public acts after leaving office was to defend a military officer attacked by Trump, Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who testified in the House impeachment inquiry about his worries over Trump’s conduct with Ukraine. Trump dismissed Vindman as a “Never Trumper,” but Dunford stepped forward to praise the Purple Heart recipient as “a professional, competent, patriotic, and loyal officer. He has made an extraordinary contribution to the security of our nation.”

By then, however, Trump had become a president entirely unrestrained. He had replaced his raft of seasoned advisers with a cast of enablers who executed his orders and engaged his obsessions. They saw their mission as telling the president yes.

Writing in November for Citizen Truth, Peter Catagno reported that "A new analysis from Foreign Policy finds that Sen. Bernie Sanders is the favorite presidential candidate of the military, in what critics argue is the latest indication that the Vermont Independent’s base is more diverse than generally portrayed... The Sanders’ campaign cites the senator’s promises to 'end the endless wars' and his years of work on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee as reasons for his popularity with military employees." Servicemen and women contributed $181,152 to Bernie's campaign, compared to just $62,821 for Private Bone Spurs. Democratic hawk Joe Biden came in 5th among military members with $34,481.

I got a call from a young candidate for Congress yesterday; he came from a  creepy-looking number that I would usually never answer but I did anyway, thinking I would just torture the telemarketer for a while. But it was a state legislator who had been recruited by the DCCC and is being backed by the Blue Dogs caucus. One of them gave him my name and number. How dumb is that? I had just finished a post and didn't want to start writing again, so I stayed on the phone with him for way longer than I would have stayed on the phone with a conservative Democrat. Besides, he was unintentionally funny. I asked him why he was calling me and he told me he was told I was the gatekeeper to Haim Saban and his political contributions. I told him I might be the gatekeeper for Haim Saban sending out a hit squad to end his career. He told me he was calling from the "super secret DCCC" program that they use to surreptitiously help conservative candidates running against progressives in primaries. I told him that if Cheri Bustos knew he was telling me this she would slit his throat with her fingernails. We got on just fine, although I think I may have heard him gulping a few times.

He also told me that he had introduced a veterans' suicide prevention bill in his state legislature and that it sailed through 3 committee hearings with 100% backing from both parties. Let's face it, who doesn't support a veteran's suicide prevention bill? The legislature is tightly controlled by a Trumpist faction of the GOP and when they realized that a super-popular bill was about to pass the legislature by a rising star Democrat who they hated, they just killed it on the spot. To hell with suicide prevention for U.S. vets; there was no way this Democrat was adding anything to his resume on their watch-- no matter how many vets wound up in morgues! That's an integral part of Trumpism.

[He agreed to write this up in his own words for this post. An hour or so later he sent me an e-mail saying he would have to check with his comms team. I laughed to myself, knowing I would never hear from him again. And I didn't.]

Trump Picks A Fight With The Navy, While Putin Can't Believe The Dividends This Whole Caper Has Paid Off

The New York Times, NBC News, Reuters and CNN all reported that Trump's Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, and Collin Green, the admiral who heads the Navy SEALs had threatened to resign over Cadet Donald J. Bonespur's interference in the Edward Gallagher case. On Thursday Trump overrode Navy brass' decision to initiate a review that could result in Gallagher being stripped of his status as a SEAL. Trump's tweet challenged the decision.

Defense officials have previously told CNN that the Pentagon does not necessarily view tweets as orders and it is unclear if an official order has been received at this time.

Trump had already intervened in the case last week, reversing Gallagher's demotion for posing for a photo with the dead body of an ISIS casualty in Iraq. US defense officials told CNN that Trump took that action against the advice of senior Pentagon leaders, saying the move along with the President's decision to pardon two Army officers who had been convicted or charged with murder could undermine the military justice system.

About an hour prior to Trump's tweet, Gallagher's attorney, Timothy Parlatore, appeared on Fox News where he slammed the Navy's leadership, particularly Rear Adm. Collin Green, the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command who had ordered the review board.

"This is an action they could have taken any time from July right after the verdict until today, instead the Admiral decided President Trump takes action on a Friday afternoon, Monday morning the Admiral comes in, brings everybody together and says I disagree with the President, we're going to take his Trident," Parlatore told the host of Fox and Friends.

After news of the Navy's review of Gallagher's SEAL status broke Tuesday, Parlatore told CNN that Trump's decision to restore Gallagher's rank meant that any additional punishments would go against the President's intent.

"It's incredible that they still can't let this go," Parlatore said, adding that the Navy's leadership was choosing to "essentially ignore" Trump's decision.

"Whatever you think about this President, that's an extremely dangerous precedent to set," he said, latter calling on Trump to dismiss Green due to "insubordination."

Asked about Trump's tweet, Parlatore told CNN "obviously we're very grateful for it."

Parlatore told CNN that Trump's decision to restore Gallagher's rank meant that any additional punishments-- such as the review board-- were going against the President's intent.

He called Green's actions "out of bounds," saying that his ordering of the review "crossed a very dangerous line, having our uniformed flag officers being directly defiant of our Commander in Chief."

Parlatore said that he hopes that Green is held accountable for his actions and had previously called on Trump to dismiss Green due to "insubordination."

On Tuesday, the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday made clear he supported Green. His spokesman, Cmdr. Nate Christensen, told CNN that Gilday "supports his commanders in executing their roles, to include Rear Adm. Green."

Gallagher had faced a court-martial for premeditated murder and attempted murder but was acquitted. "Given his service to our Nation, a promotion back to the rank and pay grade of Chief Petty Officer is justified," the White House said in a statement Friday.

CNN followed up Saturday to add that "Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley have raised serious concerns with the White House in the last 48 hours after President Donald Trump signaled he would block the Navy from ejecting Eddie Gallagher from the SEALs... As of Saturday afternoon, a review of Gallagher's status was expected to proceed. That review is considering whether he should be able to continue as a SEAL or be expelled, according to one defense official."

NBC's Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee reported that "Military leaders hoping to keep the Secretary of the Navy from quitting lobbied President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One to stop intervening" in the Gallagher case." Although Spencer claims he never threatened to resign, "Four officials familiar with Spencer’s thinking say he is strongly considering resigning and will do so if Trump signs a written order to end the Navy probe. He conveyed those feelings to Pentagon leaders on Thursday. 'He is deeply, deeply upset by this and believes it undercuts his authority,' one former Navy official said, adding that it also undercuts Rear Adm. Collin Green, commander of the Navy’s Special Warfare Command, who ordered the review and is trying to maintain good order and discipline in the SEAL community. Several of the president’s senior advisers and military leaders weighed in after Thursday’s tweet, explaining the consequences of ordering a halt to the review board, say officials."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist, Army Chief of Staff General McConville, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, and Sgt. Major of the Army Michael Grinston spoke with the president about the process on Air Force One Thursday night, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the conversation.

The military leaders were with the president en route to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the return of two U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan earlier this week.

They explained that the Trident Review Board is a peer review process and it’s best to let the process play out, the three officials said. The president did not know details of the process, the officials said, including how fellow sailors, usually Navy master chiefs, are the ones who make the recommendation.

The president also asked about the cases of former 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Matthew Golsteyn. Earlier this month Trump dismissed murder charges against Golsteyn and pardoned Lorance, who was serving 19 years in federal prison for murder.

Trump inquired about restoring Golsteyn’s status as an Army Ranger and special forces soldier. The leaders explained how Trump wading in could impact morale among troops, said the three officials. They stressed that the conversation was not contentious. The military leaders explained the process to Trump, who listened and asked pointed questions, including asking flatly asking the group what he should do.

According to the officials, the leaders told him it was his decision as commander in chief, but they wanted him to understand the consequences.

At the White House Friday, other Trump administration officials echoed Gen. Milley’s advice about Gallagher’s review board, said officials. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper both explained that the president ordering a halt could have wider consequences.

Unless there is a written order, the Navy plans to move forward with the review process, the officials said. They do not expect Trump to issue that written order at this point, but concede he could change his mind.

As of this morning it looked like Trump backed down, rather than have a messy showdown with the military. This morning, the New York Times' Maggie Haberman reiterated that "The secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if plans to expel a commando from the elite unit in a war crimes case are halted by President Trump, administration officials said Saturday. 'The high-level pushback to Mr. Trump’s unambiguous assertion on Twitter this past week that the commando, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, should remain in the unit was an extraordinary development in what was already an extraordinary case, one with few precedents in the history of presidential relations with the American military. The Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, later denied that he had threatened to resign but said disciplinary plans against Chief Gallagher would proceed because he did not consider Mr. Trump’s statement on Twitter to be a formal order. Mr. Spencer added that the president, as commander in chief, had the authority to intervene and that it would stop 'the process.'" And then... late this afternoon, Trump struck and demanded the resignation-- through Defense Secretary Mark Esper-- of his own Navy Secretary. Trump immediately replaced him with the U.S. ambassador to Norway, Kenneth Braithwaite.

Trump's Pardoning Of Men Found Guilty Of War Crimes Is Extremely Dangerous

Ruben Gallego stood with Ted Lieu on the day Lieu was promoted to a colonel 

Ted Lieu (D-CA) served in the air force and today serves as a colonel in the Air National Guard. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) was deployed in Iraq as a Marine corporal. Today the two of them are prominent voices for peace within the Congressional Progressive Caucus. On Friday the L.A. Times published an OpEd the two of them had penned, Trump’s Leniency On War Crimes Weakens National Security. "George Washington said, 'Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable, procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.' The United States has the best military in the world," wrote the two vets, "in part because our soldiers abide by, and believe in, good order and discipline. President Trump’s pardon of a war criminal and potential pardoning of other troops accused of war crimes strikes at the soul of our armed forces, undermines unit cohesion and weakens national security."

Trump never served. We did. One of us fought in the Iraq war. The other prosecuted members of the military who violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice. From the first day of basic training, like every member of the military, we were taught to follow orders, regulations and laws. Unit cohesion suffers and lives are put at risk when troops go rogue and are not punished.

Discipline is so important to the military that Article 134 of the Uniform Code specifically makes it a crime for members to engage in conduct that is prejudicial to “good order and discipline” or that “bring[s] discredit to the armed forces.” Enforcing discipline in an organization as large as the U.S. military requires the certainty of punishment for those who violate regulations or the law. If only certain provisions of the code are enforced, or if members think they can get away with crimes because of a presidential pardon, it will have a corrosive effect on every aspect of readiness, and it will encourage others to disobey orders.

If our adversaries know the American military will flout the law of war, they will be more inclined to do the same.

All members of the military are taught to obey the Law of Armed Conflict, also known as the law of war. Its many provisions enshrine principles we all recognize as basic to appropriate military conduct, including this one: Unarmed civilians are not legitimate military targets. Articles 118 and 134 prohibit murder. It is criminal to intentionally kill a defenseless civilian or to kill prisoners of war.

Some of the war crimes committed by U.S. personnel are indistinguishable from murder.

Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone by a military court. He drove an unarmed Iraqi prisoner into the desert, stripped him naked and shot him in the head and chest. Trump recently pardoned him.

Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher has been charged with committing multiple war crimes in Iraq, including shooting an unarmed civilian girl and an unarmed civilian senior citizen, stabbing to death a defenseless teenage Islamic State captive, and indiscriminately spraying a neighborhood with rockets and machine gun fire. Seven members of SEAL Team 7 came forward and reported Gallagher’s actions to Navy authorities just as the law, their training and their honor demanded. Gallagher has pleaded not guilty. Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn will be court-martialed for the killing of an unarmed Afghan. Golsteyn admits to the act; the Army calls it murder, he calls it a legitimate ambush. According to news reports, Trump is considering Memorial Day pardons for Golsteyn and Gallagher.

Our military follows the law of war not just because it is the moral thing to do but because it is critical to mission success.

When troops kill civilian children, senior citizens and prisoners of war without justification, those crimes make peace more difficult to secure and hand our enemies a great recruiting tool. If our adversaries know the American military will flout the law of war, they will be more inclined to do the same, including killing future American prisoners of war. If American troops don’t obey the law, Iraqi and Afghan officials will be less likely to cooperate with U.S. military efforts, and civilian anger will put our deployed personnel at increased risk.

We acknowledge the president’s pardon power is nearly unfettered (although it can’t be used to obstruct justice). Trump can pardon war criminals, and there is not much Congress can do to stop him. But we can speak up against this travesty.

Trump may think that formally forgiving those who have been convicted of or charged with committing war crimes is being pro-military. Exactly the opposite is true. Rather than bring “esteem to all,” Trump’s pardons would undermine good order and discipline, increase the risk to our deployed personnel, and stain the soul of our military.

Air Force One by Nancy Ohanian

Pete Buttigieg seems as disturbed by this as Lieu and Gallego. Last week, he told a veterans rally in New Hampshire that "The reason that we can stand up tall and say that's not true, that having served honorably in the military, couldn't be more different than being a war criminal is because if we ever did anything that was wrong the United States under the Uniform Code of Military Justice would have held us accountable... And so when the President joins in with this idea, that it's just natural, that if you serve in conflict, that you're going to wind up murdering somebody, he is eroding the integrity of the military, and insulting the Constitution." You know who I'd like to ask about this? Some of the Republicans in Congress who, like Lieu and Gallego, served in the U.S. military. What does Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) think? How about Lindsay Graham (R-SC)? How about Joni Ernst (R-IA), who, this morning, called him on his loony statement about how North Korean missile tests are OK? And Silent Don Bacon (R-NE)? Tom Cotton (R-AR)? Greg Steube (R-FL)? Lee Zeldin (R-NY)? Steve Stivers (R-OH)? Martha McSally (R-AZ)? These are all men and women who know better but who have devoted their recent careers to enabling Trump. So far, none of them have made a peep, although veterans groups are furious over the pardons. I wonder if the Republican legislators will ever speak up on this. One has-- a criminal himself, Duncan Hunter (R-CA), not only excused the war criminal Trump says he'll pardon, but admitted he's guilty of one of same infractions, though not murder! Basically, Hunter's message was "Oh get over it; everybody does it."

Think this isn't all that important? Prominent figures on the Christian right [including] elected politicians have warned that the fight over abortion rights could lead to a new civil war... Republican lawmakers such as Ohio’s Candice Keller have openly speculated that the divide over abortion rights might lead to civil war... Earlier this month, The Guardian revealed that the Washington state Republican legislator Matt Shea had also speculated about civil war, and the 'Balkanization' of America, predicting that Christians would retreat to 'zones of freedom' such as the inland Pacific north-west, where Shea is campaigning for a new state to break away from Washington.

Asked on a podcast if the two halves of the country could remain together, Shea said: “I don’t think we can, again, because you have half that want to follow the Lord and righteousness and half that don’t, and I don’t know how that can stand.”

Shea has introduced a bill-- unlikely to pass-- which would criminalize abortion in the state.

Right-wing crackpot Trumpist, Milo Yiannopoulos was fomenting civil war this weekend too. And offering himself as the 21st Century version of Robert E. Lee, no less!

I abhor political violence. Let me be clear about that. But when someone takes away your freedom, your speech and your ability to protect yourself and your family, there aren’t many options left. At least, that’s how citizens quickly come to feel.

It getting close to the time when, per America’s founding documents, citizens will start forming into well-regulated militias in preparation for the lawful defense of the Constitution. And maybe I’m the right person to sketch out how that should work.

You know, maximum cell size. Encrypted comms. Like I said, I abhor violence. But civil war is coming, and, if it does, well-meaning but poorly-informed and relentlessly deplatformed conservatives are going to need a handbook.

Deplatformed conservatives? Poor widdle Yiannopoulos is pouting that he's been kicked off every social media platform with an audience of more than a thousand.

Troops Leaving The Texas Border: Mission Accomplished? Top Members Of The Judiciary And Armed Services Committee Speak Out

No one except Trump's most ardent, die-hard fans ever believed U.S. troops on the southern border were anything more than a prop in Trump's shit show of a midterm campaign. Now he's running around-- with almost 40 less supporters in Congress-- clucking like a blind duck how his name wasn't on the ballot so that all those losses were anyone's fault but his own. And he seems to have lost interest completely in that bogus national security threat-- i.e., the caravan filled with ISIS terrorists carrying Ebola and leprosy. And he's ignoring those 6,000 props he sent done to the border the same way he's ignored veterans and active duty service men and women in all ways except hot air and bullshit. Is the Pentagon told them to return to their bases next week.



I've heard from one disgruntled White House official that everyone was relieved that all he did was call troops to the border to try to make an election point because what he really wanted to do was start a war somewhere, "one that would be easy to win." The compromise was that Trump-- who wanted "real soldiers" and not just National Guard units-- accepted that the Pentagon would make the technical support units they sent down into Texas "look like they were ready to fight," when the most aggressive thing any of them were prepared to do was lay some concertina wire.

In a NY Times OpEd Sunday-- Trump’s Border Stunt Is a Profound Betrayal of Our Military, Colonels Gordon Adams, Lawrence Wilkerson and Isaiah Wilson III wrote that the disgusting crooked lowlife "used America’s military forces not against any real threat but as toy soldiers, with the intent of manipulating a domestic midterm election outcome, an unprecedented use of the military by a sitting president... [T]his was a blatant political stunt. When partisan actions like this occur, they violate civil-military traditions and erode that faith, with potentially long-term damage to the morale of the force and our democratic practice-- all for electoral gain." They pointed out that-- like virtually everything the Trump regime does-- this was a dangerous precedent.

"The president crossed a line," they wrote. "The military is supposed to stay out of domestic politics. As many senior military retirees have argued, the forces are not and should not be a political instrument. They are not toy soldiers to be moved around by political leaders, but a neutral institution, politically speaking."

I spoke to quite a few members of Congress about this today, mostly Democrats, but a few Republicans as well. And everyone agreed-- Trump's a fuck-up. The only difference was that the Democrats said I could use their names and the Republicans said "out of the question." One told me I could use his... colorful reaction... in my memoir. I shall. Meanwhile, though, House Judiciary Committee superstars Pramila Jayapal (WA), Ted Lieu (CA) and Jamie Raskin (MD) all painted a shameful picture of the American presidency that is widely shared on Capitol Hill. Ted Lieu, an Air Force colonel, pointed out that "Our brave men and women in uniform-- and their families-- sacrifice far more than Donald Trump can ever comprehend. Those serving in our military already miss too many special occasions and holidays with their families. The idea that many will miss this Thanksgiving with their loved ones because of Trump's shameless political stunt at the border is disgraceful. I'd like to say this is the worst thing he has done as President, but sadly that wouldn't be true. The President owes these military families an apology."

Pramila Jayapal told me that Trump's "deployment of troops at our southern border is a blatant political ploy, a misuse of our military and quite literally, illegal. Furthermore, this administration has shamefully equated refugees and asylum seekers as threats that warrant a military response. This is a humanitarian crisis- consisting of men, women and children fleeing persecution and violence, not a national security crisis requiring military intervention at our border." Jamie Raskin is coming from a similar perspective. He said what everyone following this sordid episode is thinking: "Donald Trump couldn’t get the extravagant military parade and pageant he wanted in the capital city but he’s succeeded in wasting tens of millions of dollars using our service members as extras in a last-minute political campaign ad supporting his deranged fantasies about an armed invasion of our country. Someone needs to explain to him he’s not a King and he has no Royal Army to perform his ludicrous stunts." 

I also wanted a vision of this from the House Armed Services Committee. Ro Khanna, a member, takes this kind of thing very seriously. "Trump," Khanna told me, "continues to use the military for political propaganda. It’s sad that he is wasting our resources in manufactured controversies instead of making the investments in NIH, NSF, and DARPA that really would help keep America safe in the 21st century." Tom Suozzi is a real hard ass who, like Khanna, takes national security very, very seriously-- no fooling around on anything this important. He was in Afghanistan yesterday visiting American troops-- more than the joke of a cowardly Commander-in-Chief has ever done-- when he told me that Trump "has politicized the issue of immigration, stoking Americans’ worst fears and base instincts since day one." He went on...

The politicization of "the caravan" has now gone as far as to involve our armed services in a $100 million effort to militarize the border. While we are engaged in serious life and death military struggles throughout the world the president’s use of our armed services in this effort distracts our uniformed personnel from their legitimate and essential worldwide efforts.

We need a comprehensive immigration solution that secures our border with appropriate civilian personnel and respects the Dreamers, TPS recipients, asylum seekers and other long term, otherwise law abiding, undocumented persons seeking to live their American Dream. As a first generation American I urge my fellow Americans to remember the Promise of America, that all men and women are created equal, not just people with a green card or passport. Everyone is entitled to be treated with human respect and dignity. The militarization of our border is simply a bad policy that sends a bad message, misdirects essential personnel and resources, and threatens unintended consequences of military conflict with impoverished and desperate civilians.