Milley Speaks Out — and Trump Stays Mum – By Katie Bo Williams (Defense One) / Oct 16 2020
After a controversial summer, the Joint Chiefs chairman is holding his own with a string of public pronouncements.
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is speaking his mind.
In June, he publicly apologized for taking part in President Trump’s controversial walk across Lafayette Square after police had used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear protesters from the area. In July, he slammed the Confederacy as “treason,” even as Trump was embracing symbols of the failed secessionist movement. And then in an interview with NPR on Sunday, he cast doubt on announcements by Trump and National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien that the United States was severely cutting its troops in Afghanistan in the coming months, saying that “Robert O’Brien or anyone else can speculate as they see fit.”
By any measure, it’s a remarkable string of public pronouncements in an administration not known to brook dissent from senior officials. And yet, multiple White House officials told Defense One they have heard no hint of any grumbling from the Oval Office about Milley — and the president, known for airing his feelings about his own officials on Twitter, has given no public hint of dissatisfaction. If there is a single member of Trump’s administration who seems to be able to get away with contradicting the president, it’s the blunt-talking Princeton graduate Trump selected over the apparent front-runner to be his top military advisor.
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