ma am, i guarantee you we have checks and balances in the system milley told her. he walked her through the process of nuclear release authorities. ma am, i guarantee you these processes are very good, he said. there s not going to be an accidental firing of nuclear weapons. how can you guarantee me, pelosi asks? ma am, there s a process he says. we ll only follow legal orders. we ll only do things that are legal, ethical and moral. maggie haberman is back with us. that discussion was reportsed at the time. we knew these pelosi had these specific concerns and may not be so much that the risk was ever nuclear war. that may not be the real risk that milley perceived here. that s right. in my reporting at the time and now in the months since, milley was not concerned. defense officials were not concerned that trump was going to try to order some kind of illegal nuclear strike. they were much more concerned about domestic situations and much more concerned about what he might try to do w
military domestically. there was always the concern about a foreign engagement, like a strike against iran, but frankly that had been there for a very long time. this nukes concern was never top of mind for dod officials. and the book has this exchange in it between general milley and liz cheney, who spoke after the insurrection milley asking how are you doing? and she said that f ing guy jim jordan that son of a bitch. while these maniacs are going through the place i m standing in the aisle and he said we need to get the ladies away from the aisle, let me help you. i smacked his hand away and told him get away from me you f ing did this. this is a scene that depicts a dynamic that we have seen continue among republicans in congress since january 6th. you know, what do you think about this moment? i think this moment speaks a lot to what you have seen with liz cheney in the months since january 6th. she has been among the republicans who has not wanted to move away from it.
trump wanted throughout the summer which was to use the insurrection act in some form against deploying active military on the streets of the u.s. to try to tamp down protests. they were all three of them very concerned about this. so this went on for a very long time. and then one by one you had esper and barr disappear. esper got fired, barr could not take it anymore and resigned. and i think had told associates that trump seemed different and acted as if he had nothing to lose. the backdrop for that was that plus the fact there was this meeting i reported on in realtime on december 18th in the oval office where former lieutenant general flynn and former national security flynn was presenting this notion to the president in the oval office about possibly using the apparatus of government to rerun an election. so milley had reasons to be afraid and suddenly after milley was alone. i think it s not just the context of january 6th and the retrospective, there were a lot
that s the president s chief military adviser. milley was compelled to begin to track political developments in the country and he s adamantly, adamantly someone who stays out of partisan politics. he was tracking the protests. he very strongly believed that the u.s. military should not be called out on the streets against protesters. that this was a matter for civil law enforcement. he wanted no part of it. something he was tracking literally day by day. and this whole notion of resigning, to understand mark milley, you must start with understanding he s a constitutionalist. he is someone who very strongly, more than anybody, believes in the constitution. and that means military the military will not follow orders that are illegal, immoral, not proportionate. they just won t do it. and he took a stand you can
he stayed close to washington, close to the white house, close to all the key personnel that he was talking to. he had his finger on the pulse. he was constantly reading the room, so to speak. and he wanted to make sure that nothing tripped over that edge. he put himself out there. not a traditional role. something i think even general milley would probably say should not have happened. this is not a job of the u.s. military. but at that time, with nobody else around, milley is someone who had the influence the power, someone who was being listened to by key people and especially listened to by people by nancy pelosi, who was calling over to the pentagon, not infrequently to try and get her sense of what was going on. not the things we see happen around here everyday. just remember, mark milley, trump appointee, as chairman of the joint chiefs also here which is not insignificant.