Trump calls for Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley RESIGN and be replaced by someone who is 'actually willing to defend our military' and doesn't fear 'upsetting the woke mob'
Donald Trump on Wednesday called on Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley to resign so he can be replaced by 'someone actually willing to defend our military'.
The president said Milley's greatest fear is 'upsetting the woke mob' and slammed him for 'begging me not to send in the military' when 'Black Lives Matters rioters were threatening to destroy Washington D.C.'.
Trump also attacked him for 'making up' a story that Milley yelled at him in the Situation Room when he asked him to take charge of dealing with the protesters.
In his statement on Wednesday, Trump said: 'Gen. Mark Milley’s greatest fear is upsetting the woke mob.
'When Black Lives Matter rioters were threatening to destroy Washington, D.C., he practically begged me not to send in the military to stop the riots.
Donald Trump on Wednesday called on Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley (right) to resign so he can be replaced by 'someone actually willing to defend our military'
'Milley later issued an embarrassing and groveling apology for walking at my side to St. John’s Church, which far-left rioters almost burned to the ground the day before.
'Instead of denouncing the rioters, he denounced himself—a humiliation for our Military. A year later even the Fake News had to admit that their Lafayette Square narrative was a giant lie. Milley, once again, looked like a fool.
'To further ingratiate himself with Biden, progressive Media, and the Radical Left, Milley went to Congress and actually defended Critical Race Theory being shoved down the throats of our soldiers.
'This Marxist, racist anti-American propaganda has no place in our Military—I banned these training programs, now Biden and the Pentagon have resumed them. As soon as possible, Congress must defund this racist indoctrination.
'Gen. Milley ought to resign, and be replaced with someone who is actually willing to defend our Military from the Leftist Radicals who hate our Country and our Flag.'
On Monday, an excerpt from Michael Bender's new book Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost, claimed that Trump and Milley got into an obscenity-laden row during the BLM protests last summer.
'I said you're in f***ing charge!' Trump yelled at Milley when he asked the military to step in.
'Well, I'm not in charge!' Milley shouted back, according to Bender, further stoking Trump's fury.
'You can't f***ing talk to me like that!' Trump responded.
The president said Milley's greatest fear is 'upsetting the woke mob' and slammed him for 'begging me not to send in the military' when 'Black Lives Matters rioters were threatening to destroy Washington D.C.'
Milley hit back against growing criticism over teaching critical race theory in the military and said recruits should be 'open-minded and be widely read' during a hearing on the Defense Department's 2022 budget
That led to pronouncements about the legal role of the military in domestic affairs at a time when protesters were breaking out throughout U.S. cities, sometimes clashing with law enforcement.
''Goddamnit. There's a room full of lawyers here. Will someone inform him of my legal responsibilities?' Milley said – in comments he made to others, according to Bender.
'He's right, Mr. President,' Barr injected. 'The general is right.'
Trump ramped up his criticism of Milley following an interview Friday morning when he called him pathetic.
'They didn't talk that way when I was around, I can tell you. They didn't talk that way or I would have gotten rid of them in two minutes. In particular Navy and Milley, just sad, pathetic statements,' the former president continued.
Milley, Navy Secretary Thomas Harker and Naval Operations Chief Admiral Michael Gilday testified this week regarding the fiscal year 2022 budget for the Department of Defense.
Trump announced he would nominate Milley to take the United States' top military office in December 2019, he was confirmed in July 2019 and sworn in September 30, 2019.
Joint Chiefs served for four years, meaning Milley will remain in his post until September 30, 2023, a few months before the end of Biden's third year as president.
Milley, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the budget Wednesday hit back against growing criticism over the military teaching critical race theory.
He said recruits should be 'open-minded and be widely read.'
General Milley was grilled by Republican Congressmen who claim the U.S. military is becoming more 'woke' as military institutions like the U.S. Military Academy adopt the teaching of critical race theory.
Embattled Florida Representative Matt Gaetz asked Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who is black, during the hearing Wednesday about his thoughts on the military teaching critical race theory, but Milley insisted that he also respond to the question.
Democratic Representative Chrissy Houlahan later yielded some of her time to allow Milley to respond.
He did not endorse critical race theory but strongly condemned those who say it shouldn't be taught.
'What is wrong with understanding - having some situational understanding - about the country for which we are here to defend?' Milley asked before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.
'And I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned and noncommissioned officers, of being, 'woke' or something else, because we're studying some theories that are out there.'
At this, Gaetz could be seen from his chair shaking his head and appearing to scoff in disapproval at Milley's defense.
'I want to understand white rage, and I'm white and I want to understand it,' Milley said.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson tore into Milley, calling the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is 'stupid' and 'a pig'.
In his opening monologue Thursday night, Carlson responded to Milley's testimony in Congress this week by saying: 'He got the job because he is obsequious. He knows who to suck up to and he's more than happy to do it. Feed him a script and he will read it.'
'Hard to believe that man wears a uniform. He's that unimpressive. What is white rage? It's one of those diseases that only affects people with certain melanin levels.,' Carlson continued in his angry rant.
'It is a race-specific illness,' he continued. 'That is what Mark Milley learned from reading about it, that's why he's making the soldiers read about it too. They need to know!'
The general stressed during the hearing Wednesday the need for greater understanding of the driving forces behind the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump's supporters, which included white supremacists groups, who tried to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election win.
'What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out. I want to maintain an open mind here,' Milley said.
Milley's response came after a Republican congressman, Michael Waltz – a former Army Green Beret – produced a letter from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point acknowledging teaching about critical race theory.
The theory maintains that racism is ingrained in U.S. law and institutions and that legacies of slavery and segregation have created an uneven playing field for black Americans.
Controversy surrounding the theory has mushroomed into a national debate over how - and which version of - U.S. history is taught in schools.
'This came to me from cadets, from families, from soldiers, with their alarm, with their concern, about how divisive this teaching is,' Waltz said, adding it was rooted in Marxism.
Milley tried to respond to Waltz directly but only got the opportunity later, when a Democratic lawmaker gave him a chance.
He noted that university graduates should be aware of all kinds of theories and that just because he read about Marxism didn't make him a Communist.
'I've read Mao Zedong. I've read Karl Marx. I've read Lenin. That doesn't make me a communist, he told the lawmakers.
'I do think it's important, actually, for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read,' Milley said.
Milley's comments came a week after Navy admiral faced tough grilling from Republican lawmakers on his inclusion of the controversial book How To Be An Antiracist on a recommended reading list for sailors.
Admiral Mike Gilday, the chief of Naval operations, stood his ground at Tuesday's House Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, defending the book's inclusion on the list.
Gilday added the 2019 book by Ibram X. Kendi, which is popular with proponents of critical race theory, to the Navy's optional reading checklist in February, listing it as a 'foundational' work for sailors.
Kendi's book proposes that any system that produces different average outcomes for people of different skin colors is racist and should be destroyed, and argues that discrimination that 'creates equity' is antiracist and should be lauded.
At the hearing, which was ostensibly on the Navy's budget, questions from Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Colorado Republican, who cited passages in Kendi's book arguing that only 'present discrimination' can make up for 'past discrimination'.
'How does exposing our sailors to the idea that they are either oppressors or oppressed, and that we must actively discriminate in order to make up for past discrimination, improve our Navy's readiness and lethality?' Lamborn asked.
'You mentioned critical race theory -- I'm not a theorist, I'm the chief of Naval operations,' Gilday responded.
'There is racism in the Navy just like there's racism in our country, and the way we're going to get after it is to be honest about it, not to sweep it under the rug, and talk about it,' he said.
Admiral Mike Gilday, the chief of Naval operations, stood his ground last Tuesday's House Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill when he was questioned on his inclusion of the controversial book How To Be An Antiracist on a recommended reading list for sailors
'It doesn't mean I have any expectation that everybody believe, or support, everything that Mr. Kendi states in his book. I don't support everything that Kendi says. The key thing is that sailors have to be able to think critically,' Gilday argued.
Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, also lashed out at Gilday, contrasting his reading list choice with the Navy's recent vow to root out any 'extremism' in the ranks.
'Do you consider opposition to interracial adoption an extremist belief?' Banks asked, referring to Kendi's September 2020 tweet suggesting Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is a 'white colonizer' for adopting two Haitian children.
Gilday's mic was off, making his response unclear, but Banks pressed on.
The 2019 book is popular with proponents of critical race theory
'Do you personally consider advocating for the destruction of American capitalism to be extremist?' Banks asked, referring to Kendi's assertion that capitalism and racism are 'conjoined twins' that must be eliminated together to root out racism.
Gilday fired back: 'I'm not forcing anybody to read the book, it's on a recommended reading list.'
Pressed by Banks on whether he supported Kendi's controversial views, Gilday went on: 'I'd have to consider the context of the statement he made, I'm not going to sit here and defend cherry-picked quotes from somebody's book.'
'This is a bigger issue than Kendi's book, what this is really about is trying to to paint the United States military, and the United States Navy as weak, as woke,' Gilday said. 'We are not weak, we are strong.'
Last month, Republican Senator reignited the attack against the 'woke' military by sharing a U.S. Army recruiting video that told the story of how a 'little girl raised by two moms' grew up to become a soldier.
The Texas senator triggered online fury after questioning the role of what he called an 'emasculated military' and comparing it with a video that appeared to show a rugged, shaven-headed Russian recruit parachuting into combat.
'The job of the military is to kill the bad guys. And it is to strike fear in the enemies of America,' he told Fox News as he defended himself from accusations that he was unloading on serving U.S. troops.
'People sign up to join the military because they want to keep us safe, they don't want to sit around a circle, emoting and passing daisies back and forth.'
His comments highlight fears America's armed forces are being softened by 'woke' principles and follows similar criticism of a CIA advert.
The latest controversy features an American video telling the story of Cpl. Emma Malonelord, a serving soldier who describes how she came to choose a life in the military.
The colorful, animated recruiting video describ es how she defended freedom by attending LGBTQ marches and grew up to join the U.S. Army.
It achieved notoriety when Cruz tweeted out a TikTok clip, that opened with the Russian soldier leaping out of a plane before cutting to the animated story of Malonelord.
'Holy crap,' he wrote in a tweet.
'Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea....'
Cruz's words quickly went viral, unleashing an angry torrent of accusations that he was trolling his own country's American armed forces and had been suckered by an adversary's propaganda.
And veterans expressed fury that he could criticise the Army and target a real-life serving soldier.
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