Nearly five years after then-President Donald Trump selected Gen. Mark Milley to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he has stepped down from the post amid controversy. The two men have been at odds since before the former president’s term in the White House ended, and Milley included a thinly veiled attack on Trump in his recent retirement speech.
His remarks came days after Trump issued a brutal assessment of his service. Specifically, the former president referenced media reports that Milley improperly provided Chinese officials with information about U.S. military plans.
“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” Trump wrote on social media. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
Without mentioning Trump by name, Milley seemed to reference him during a recent retirement ceremony.
#Breaking: Mark Milley slams former President Donald Trump in his retirement speech, calling Trump a "wannabe dictator."
Milley, who committed treason by promising China he would alert them of a US attack
Don't worry, Milley, your time will come to answer for your crimes. pic.twitter.com/pkGeWZnJC5
— 🇺🇸 Larry 🇺🇸 (@LarryDJonesJr) September 29, 2023
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said, adding: “We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
Trump got the last word with a social media post following Milley’s speech.
“Slow moving and thinking Mark Milley should never have made those calls to China’s Military Leadership,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Does this moron, together with WOKE FOOL [former Defense Secretary] Mark Yesper (Esper!), who said ‘yes’ to everything, have any idea how dangerous a situation he put our Country in? Look at his words – STUPID & VERY DANGEROUS!”
Trump’s earlier remarks about Milley prompted widespread condemnation by the mainstream media and his political rivals — including former Vice President Mike Pence, who is currently pursuing a long-shot White House bid against his ex-boss.
During a recent address at Georgetown University, Pence declared: “Frankly, what Donald Trump said about him in that tweet, about treason and death, was utterly inexcusable.”
