Trump Dings ‘Weak’ Ex-Defense Secretary: ‘I Had to Run the Military Myself’
‘FAKE NEWS’
Asked whether it was true that he had suggested the U.S. attack Mexico’s “drug cartels with missiles,” the ex-president had an uncharacteristic answer.
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday deemed Mark Esper “a RINO incapable of leading,” aggressively disputing a number of the key claims made in a forthcoming book by his one-time defense secretary—except one. In a statement responding to a request for comment from CBS News’ 60 Minutes, on which Esper appeared Sunday to discuss his book, A Sacred Oath, Trump railed against “Yesper” and “the Fake News media.” The former president insisted it was “a complete lie” that he had asked why they couldn’t “just shoot” Black Lives Matter protesters in the legs in 2020, as Esper has alleged, saying that “10 witnesses” could back him up. “Mark Esper was weak and totally ineffective,” Trump continued, “and because of it, I had to run the military. I took out ISIS, Qasem Soleimani, [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi, rebuilt the military with $2.5 trillion, created Space Force, and so much more.” The investigative program also asked Trump about Esper’s claim that, in office, the then-president had asked his then-defense secretary if they could quietly fire missiles at Mexico to “destroy the drug labs.” To that, in his Sunday statement, Trump only said: “No comment.”
