Former US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said in excerpts from his book published on Monday that former US President Donald Trump, while in office, expressed his deep displeasure with the people who demonstrated in front of the White House, saying: “Can’t you just shoot them? “
Esper said he was sitting in the Oval Office when the president was outraged and “complained loudly about the protests that were taking place in Washington” over the killing of a black man by police.
Excerpts from Esper’s memoir, viewed by the news website Axios, say Trump said, “Can’t you just shoot them? Shoot them in the legs?
The protests, marred by violence and clashes between protesters and security forces, were part of a wave of demonstrations that swept the country after the killing of black American George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Esper’s report appears to confirm earlier reports that Trump believed the military should intervene to quell civil unrest.
In a previously published book by journalist Michael Bender, citing sources, it was reported that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, opposed Trump’s proposal to use the army in the context of the request of the owner of the White House to be tough on the unrest.
Bender quoted Trump as saying, “Shoot them in the legs, or maybe in the legs… But be tough with them!”
US Parks Police and National Guard forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to drive demonstrators out of the White House area.
Esper said at the time that he was opposed to the implementation of the Intifada Act (passed two hundred years ago), which was rarely used and which gives the president the right to station US military forces on the territory of the United States.
His stance was reported to have angered Trump, who fired him in November 2020.
Axios said that Esper’s book, due out May 10, has been seen by the Pentagon, generals and administration officials.
The book includes a description of Esper Joe, a circle close to Trump, as “surrealist”, noting that the proposal for soldiers to shoot Americans “diminishes the effect on the atmosphere”.
In his memoir Holy Oath, Esper wrote, “I had to find a way” to get Trump out of this atmosphere “without causing the chaos I was trying to avoid.”
