TWENTY-ONE
“We must be vigilant about the violence that’s being done by the incumbent president to our democracy and to the pursuit of justice,” Biden said during a speech in Philadelphia’s City Hall on June 2. Several American flags were behind him. It was his first speech before a live audience since March and the start of the pandemic.
The message: presidential. The lone campaign sign was the one on his lectern. After George Floyd’s death, Biden showed a new readiness and resolve to step up and to be more aggressive. Many of his advisers saw it as a turning point for him to remind voters of the stakes.
“We can’t leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away and do nothing. We can’t,” Biden told the crowd in Philadelphia. “The moment has come for our nation to deal with systemic racism. To deal with the growing economic inequality in our nation. And to deal with the denial of the promise of this nation to so many.”
Esper was flustered on June 3. With protests continuing in Washington, Trump still wanted 10,000 active-duty troops deployed to the city.
As with Milley, Esper was acutely aware of what that could mean. The 1968 riots erupted amid similar plagues of urban poverty, racism and anger over police brutality. Putting active-duty military in the streets, in an age of social media and global television, could provoke a human tragedy.
Esper decided that he had to act before things further deteriorated with Trump. But his private counsel only meant so much. This was a president who traced political capital through public statements and media hits. Esper decided he would declare publicly and unequivocally that he saw no reason to invoke the Insurrection Act.
He suggested Milley stand next to him.
“I shouldn’t do that,” Milley said. “You’re about to make a significant political statement of policy and I shouldn’t be there in uniform. But, you know, this is one of those moments.”
Esper stood before the Pentagon press corps alone. Milley listened from the back of the room.
“I’ve always believed and continue to believe that the National Guard is best suited for performing domestic support to civil authorities, in support of local law enforcement,” Esper said. “I say this not only as a secretary of defense, but also as a former soldier and a former member of the National Guard.
“The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”
Milley thought Esper should be forever thanked for drawing a bright line. It was an important moment.
Their phones started to blow up.
“The president is really pissed,” Mark Meadows, the White house chief of staff, said within minutes to Esper. “And really mad. He is going to rip your face off.”
Esper and Milley were due at the White House at 10 a.m. for a National Security Council meeting about plans for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. General Frank McKenzie, the Central Commander who oversaw the 19-year war, was in Washington to brief the president.
“Can you just go do the briefing?” Esper asked Milley. “You and Frank by yourselves because this is going to be ugly.”
“We can do that for sure,” Milley said. “But we shouldn’t. You need to go.”
Esper exhaled loudly. “It’s going to be really bad. Going to get screamed at and yelled at.”
“Yep,” Milley said. They knew each other well. They had worked closely before taking the top military jobs in the United States government. Esper had been secretary of the Army, and Milley the Army chief of staff for 18 months.
“That’s true,” Milley said, “but you’ve got to face down the dragon sometimes. Just pretend you’re back on The Plain”—the parade field—“at West Point and you’re just getting your ass whipped.”
When they walked into the Oval Office, almost everyone there had their head down, looking at their shoes.
Something bad must be happening, Milley thought. Ambush.
Chairs were arranged in a half-circle facing the Resolute Desk where Trump sat with his arms folded. Pence occupied one. Meadows another. The center chair was reserved for Esper. Another for Milley.
A group of Trump’s staff sat on the couches and in other chairs. Trump sat ramrod straight. His face was red. He glared at Esper, who glared back.
“What did you do?” Trump yelled. “Why did you do that?”
“Mr. President, I told you,” Esper said. “What I said before is I do not believe that this situation calls for invocation of the Insurrection Act. I think it would be terrible for the country and terrible for the military.”
“You took away my authority!” Trump screamed.
“Mr. President, I did not take away your authority. That is your authority. I offered my views on it and whether or not I would support it.”
Trump retorted fiercely, quoting some garbled version of Esper’s comments to the media earlier in the day.
Esper pulled a transcript of his press conference from his binder. He had highlighted his comments on the Act and slapped it on the Resolute Desk. He pushed it toward the president.
“That’s what I said!”
Trump glanced at it. “I don’t care a fuck about your fucking transcript.”
Esper wasn’t sure Trump read the comments but felt he had at least called the president on it. Trump’s face steadily grew redder and Esper believed the president thought his ability to invoke the Insurrection Act was over. Esper was fine with that. Trump had been contained.
“Who do you think you are?” Trump screamed at Esper. “You took away my authorities. You’re not the president! I’m the god damn president.”
Milley, sitting silently next to Esper, watched Trump carefully. He believed the escalation and rage he was witnessing firsthand was disturbing, another face-off that reminded him of Full Metal Jacket.
An avalanche of invective kept coming. When the president had fully vented to Esper, he turned to the others sitting in the Oval Office. “You’re all fucked up,” he yelled at them. “Everybody. You’re all fucked. Every one of you is fucked up!”
“Robert,” Milley whispered to O’Brien, “I think we probably need to be briefing the president on Afghanistan.” The meeting was supposed to start soon.
“All right,” Trump finally said, as if he were abruptly changing the television channel. “Get out of here. Everybody, get out of here.”
Milley liked to think he and Esper had not subverted the authority of the president but fulfilled their duty to provide him with the best, unvarnished advice. They had a constitutional obligation to ensure the president was fully informed on his options. But once Trump decided and issued an order, they were required to execute it.
The only exception was an illegal, immoral or unethical order. That would be the point at which someone might consider resigning, Milley reasoned. But Milley could not recall a time in history when a cabinet officer, one as essential as the secretary of defense, had angrily slapped a paper down on the Resolute Desk.
“We checkmated him,” Milley thought with tentative relief. They had tied Trump’s hands, outplayed him, and that was what made him so enraged.
On the way over to the Situation Room, Milley said to Esper, “You just sit there. Don’t say anything. Let me and Frank handle this.”
Minutes later in the Situation Room, the president took his seat at the head of the table.
General McKenzie, a Marine with vast command experience, began to review the options for withdrawing from Afghanistan, one of Trump’s central campaign promises. The generals kept arguing they wanted to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan and not in the homeland. They regularly invoked the memory of the September 11 plot, which had originated in Afghanistan, and argued that the U.S. troop presence was an insurance policy against another 9/11 attack.
This discussion started very calm and rational, with no noticeable spillover from the “Full Metal Jacket” fireworks in the Oval Office.
Then someone brought up the threat from Iran.
“Okay,” Trump said, “tell me about Iran. Tell me what plans you’ve got, options you’ve got for Iran.”
Iran was under General McKenzie’s Central Command, which had responsibility for the Middle East and Afghanistan. Iran, however, was not on the agenda. But McKenzie knew the strike and war plans cold.
“Frank, go ahead,” Milley said, “brief the president on what we’ve got for Iran.”
McKenzie reeled off an array of options—air strikes, sea strikes, sabotage, cyberattacks, infiltration, and land invasion if necessary.
“Oh, wow,” Trump responded, “how long will it take to do that?”
In the course of being responsive, McKenzie made some of the options sound enticing. “Oh, yes, sir,” McKenzie said, “we can do this.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Milley said putting his hand in the air. “Frank, tell him the rest of the story.”
Milley then rattled off, rapid-fire, a list of statements and questions, all of them meant to raise doubts about launching an attack on Iran.
“Tell him the cost.”
“Tell him casualties.”
“Tell him how much time.”
“How many ships get sunk?”’
“And how many troops die?”
“How many pilots get shot down?”
“How many civilian casualties?”
“And what about the families in Bahrain?” That was the homeport for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
“How long do you think this is going to take?”
“Is it 30 days or 30 years?”
“Is this going to be another war?”
The president kept looking back and forth between Milley and McKenzie. The answers telegraphed unknown consequences and outcomes.
One of the hawks on Iran was O’Brien, the national security adviser. If Iran struck U.S. military targets, retribution should be swift and massive, he said.
“Let’s hit ’em hard, Mr. President,” O’Brien said several times. “Hit ’em hard.”
“It’s easy to get into a war,” Milley interjected, using one of his and Esper’s favorite lines. “But it’s hard to get out of a war.”
Over the years, Milley had studied World War I. The trigger had been the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914.
Yet there were many assassinations that year in global politics. Why had that one been the trigger? It was a question that stayed with Milley. Historians tried to answer it, but at the time, no one could have predicted the global ramifications. With any strike, you could have a plan, but outcomes were never certain. And a great powers war was always possible if the U.S. was not careful.
Milley knew that Meadows had told the president that a war would be bad news for Trump’s reelection campaign. Meadows also told him that firing another secretary of defense would not serve Trump politically.
“You don’t want a war,” Milley told Trump at a previous meeting. And even now, sitting in the Situation Room, Milley didn’t think the president was seeking a war. But a strike seemed to always be on the table. His curiosity had to be managed.
Striking Iran or some other action became less and less appealing as the session ended.