Woodward-Costa book reveals
more disturbing Trump facts
General Mark Milley was concerned that the former president would “go rogue”
By Byron Toben
On the eve of a threatened demonstration at the U.S. capital on September 18 to protest the “political prisoners” held for trial as a result of their violent actions on January 6, and the oft postponed date of September 20 as the date when Donald Trump will be re-instated as U.S. president, it is timely that a new book, Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, has been published.
Among the revelations therein, two that have struck me are those about former vice president Mike Pence and General Mark Milley. Pence, being pressed relentlessly by Trump to declare the electoral vote count questionable, called upon Dan Quayle, former vice president under George H.W. Bush, for advice. Quayle, also from Indiana (as was Pence), emphatically urged Pence not to even consider the possibility.
Pence, who had dutifully stood in Trump’s shadow for four years, when stressing that his role under the Constitution was purely symbolic and he had no power to overturn the state-certified returns, was countered with a childish “You’re no longer my friend” by Trump, who later did not try to stop rioters’ calls to hang Pence.
Pence… when stressing that his role under the Constitution was purely symbolic and he had no power to overturn the state-certified returns, was countered with a childish “You’re no longer my friend’
Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, afraid that Trump could “go rogue”, held secret meetings with his military colleagues to head off possible military action in this nuclear age and even called his Chinese General counterpart to assure that things were under control. For these adult-in-the-room actions, Trump now calls for treason charges against Milley, according to Vanity Fair.
Back on June 20 of 2020, I posted the first of my watching briefs on the Trump administration, often using the journalistic “hook”, echoing Queen Elizabeth’s famous plaint about her “Annus Horribilis” in my 2020 is Donald Trump’s Annus Horribilis. In that article, I listed some 20 books from 2016 to mid-2020 criticizing the Trump administration. That number has since more than doubled, culminating in (so far) Peril.
Viewers can see, in reverse chronological order, all of my articles here.
I have been particularly concerned, as in my October 10, 2020 article The Cult of Trump and Fascism in America, which features rare footage of the 1939 American Nazi party rally in Madison Square Garden and the 1978 Jimmy Jones Kool-Aid death cult in Guyana.
Feature image: Donald Trump, General Mark Milley and Mike Pence, DoD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Dominique A. Pineiro/Released, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
More articles from Byron Toben
Byron Toben, a past president of The Montreal Press Club, has been WestmountMag.ca’s theatre reviewer since July 2015. Previously, he wrote for since terminated web sites Rover Arts and Charlebois Post, print weekly The Downtowner and print monthly The Senior Times. He also is an expert consultant on U.S. work permits for Canadians.
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