In Heated Oval Office Meeting, Donald Trump Reportedly Demanded 10K Active Duty Troops Patrol Washington, D.C.
Donald Trump demanded that top military leaders call up 10,000 active duty U.S. troops to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C., during a heated Oval Office meeting earlier in the week, a report claims.
The report from CBS News claimed that Trump demanded the military call up the active duty troops to station in the nation’s capital amid growing unrest and sometimes violent protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The report noted that Trump’s idea was met with sharp pushback, with Attorney General William Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley all objecting to the idea of using U.S. troops in that manner.
Trump had threatened on Twitter a number of times throughout the week to use active duty troops to disperse protests.
The report added that Esper and Milley tried to satisfy Trump’s demand by pushing governors on a call later that day to call up the National Guard, threatening that they could send active duty troops across the country if governors did not comply.
The report also claimed that some of those top military leaders may have been pulled into a controversial political action without knowing it had been planned. Esper and Milley were headed to the FBI’s Washington Field Office the same day as the reportedly heated meeting when they received a call to return to the White House and update the president. While they did not end up briefing Trump, they were asked to stay for his address in the Rose Garden and accompany him on a walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church afterward.
They were seen walking with Trump following his speech and after law enforcement officers used force to clear peaceful protesters from the area around Lafayette Park, which led to controversy and criticism that military leaders appeared to participate in what was seen as a political photo op for Trump.
A number of former military leaders spoke out against Trump this week for using force to clear protesters, including former U.S. Marine General and onetime Secretary of Defense James Mattis. He denounced the president in a statement this week, accusing Trump of using the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of Americans protesting Floyd’s death.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis wrote in a piece published in The Atlantic. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society.”
