Hes my guest. Lets go outfront. Good evening. Im erin burnett. The Breaking News, general Milley Wasnt alone. As calls grow from Mark Milley to resign over revelations he contacted a top chinese general twice in the final months of donald trumps presidency to reassure beijing the u. S. Would not attack china, were learning Mark Esper also took extraordinary steps at the same time. A former senior Defense Official says that the chinese were so concerned about the rhetoric coming out of trumps White House last year that esper, the Defense Secretary had a top deputy, not milley, a top Deputy Back channel beijing telling them they were in no danger of being attacked. That is the exact same Thing Milley said and weve learned today that milley conducted his call to the top chinese general in consultation with and with the approval of Secretary Esper. That call from milley was on October 30th of 2020. And there was one more call after that. This a call from milley to the same chinese general
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And we were concerned about what the president might do. so general milley understanding that same kind of concern i think tried to make sure that others understood that there was not going to be any kind of sudden attack or that we would not find ourselves in the middle of a nuclear war. i think he was doing what he felt was right as chairman of the joint chiefs. so secretary panetta, let me get to one part of it that seems to be raising the most questions and that is the specific quote about an attack, right? according to the book on that october 30th call, and again, i emphasize we understand this was in coordination with esper, but milley says in part quote general lee, you and i have known each other for five years now. if we re going to attack, i m going to call you ahead of time. it s not going to be a surprise. look, this is the quote that kind of makes everybody go huh?
His counterparts including those reported are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the department of defense and the enter agency. we do not take an oath to an individual. no, we do not take an oath to a country, a tribe or religion. we take an oath to the constitution. reporter: milley s fears about trump s actions and what he could have done have been well documented in another book this summer, two washington post reporters wrote milley told his staff that he believed trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the insurrection act and call out the military. milley has weighed into issues of racial injustice apologizing for being seen alongside trump after the brutal lafayette square crackdown on black lives matter protesters. my presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the mill taren valved in domestic politics. reporter: after trump lost, a defense official told cnn that
Encaping with what the chairman of the joint chiefs should be able to do. i think he did the right thing. so let me just go through the timeline of these calls for you so that you can explain a couple of details. so-call one from milley to general lee in china happens on october 30th before the election and that is the call where milley says don t worry, i would tell you if we were going to attack it s important we say that because that call was made in consultation with the defense secretary esper. so that s important to note. call two is where there are questions because it happens on january 8th, ed ensper is no lo the acting defense secretary is christopher miller hand picked by trump. a man who oversees a purge at the defense department where senior posts are filled by trump loyalists and miller now tells cnn today quote, i wouldn t have approved of anything of the nature portrayed in woodward s