always. thank you, so much, jamie, really appreciate it. joining me now for more perspective on this is retired general james spider marks, a cnn military analyst. spider, what is your reaction to this. how extraordinary it is as we re learning from the excerpts? it is quite extraordinary. a couple of things, kate. and thanks for having me on your show. this is about moral courage, right. if, as reported, if that reporting and if the books attributions are accurate, this is all about moral courage and all senior leaders, all level of leadership, break down that senior barrier, all levels of leaders must be prepared to resign and walk at a moment if there is a moral or ethical or legal challenge. and so what we see general mark milley doing is being confronted with the possibility as described of a coup that the president of the united states might not depart after the fair
milley is very taciturn guy, he s a very private guy. he s not a self promotor. i would find it odd that he would in these descriptive terms as a moment where i saved democracy, we saved democracy, kind of a high-five moment, because moral courage is what takes place behind closed doors. personal courage is in the open and you get medals for personal courage and moral courage, you don t get recognized and walk with your head held high, we did the right thing and move on from here and have this ten second memory. and in spite of that, thats an interesting point. because i ve been thinking about this. because general milley is known as a man who works hard to keep the military apart from politics. to keep the military out of politics. to do so himself out of politics. and it is clear from the
but it seems like they re intellectually ambushed. oh, goodness, we should not be here. and it was an opportunity for both of those gentleman to stop, do an about-face and leave. could have done that. but that didn t take place. but what mark milley did close on the heels of that is he very publicly did a mea culpa. he said i take ownership of this. that was a bad decision on my part. nobody put a gun to my head. an i did this and i should not have been there because i crossed a line. so let s consider that, i m wrong for having done that and i m going to take ownership. did he that days, if not a week before the secretary of defense did. so good on him for saying i have to make right with this. there is a lot to work there. i look forward to continuing this discussion with you. spider, thank you so much. coming up for us, president biden, le be addressing the nation minutes from now about billions of dollars in direct payments going to millions of
to investigate a man many called a monster. thanks for being here. we begin this hour with an incredible series of accounts from america s top military leader. detailing how unhinged the final weeks of the trump pressy were and how close to the brink democracy came. cnn has obtained excerpts of an upcoming book i alone could fix from the washington post. in it, general mark milley is quoted as saying that he feared donald trump and his allies might attempt a coup after trump s election defeat. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff still in his position as the president s top military adviser saying according to the book that he warned other top generals to be on guard. here is one part. quote, they may try, but they re not going to f ing succeed. he told them. you can t do this without the military. you can t do this without the cia and the fbi. we are the guys with the guns.
reporting that he did not seek he doesn t seem to seek out these situations but he found himself in these situations. and barbara starr is reporting something very similar and said that according to a close source to milley, he won t sit silent while people try to use the military against americans so while he s trying his hardest to actively stay out of politics, if the events that occurred brought him into that arena temporarily, quote, so be it. what do you think of this? well, it s true. look, there is a very, very thin line, kate, between political and military. we often conflate those two. this is a political military issue, that is not unusual. let s go back to lafayette square in the summer when the president and the chairman of joint chiefs are walking in step across lafayette square and all avenue sudden it is apparent that both secretary mark esper and general mark milley seem like their ambushed. i don t know that.