Trump called top military brass 'a bunch of dopes and babies' in 2017: book

Tal Exelrod
The Hill
Mon, 20 Jan 2020 00:43 UTC

President Trump lashed out at top military brass in a contentious Pentagon meeting in 2017, slamming them as "dopes" and "babies," according to an excerpt of a forthcoming book.

The broadside occurred at a meeting in the so-called Tank, a prominent meeting room in the Pentagon, according to an excerpt from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America written by The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker.

The journalists reported that attendees at the meeting included the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford, then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Vice President Pence and other military and Cabinet officials.

The meeting was intended as a "tailored tutorial" for Trump to help prime him on the United States's alliances and international strategies, the pair wrote. However, after berating the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal and the war in Afghanistan, the president reportedly lashed out at his top advisers.

"I want to win," he said, according to the excerpt. "I wouldn't go to war with you people."

"You're a bunch of dopes and babies."

According to the book, Tillerson was enraged with the comment, while Mattis and Pence remained silent.

"No, that's just wrong," said the former secretary of State, whose father and uncle had both been combat veterans. "Mr. President, you're totally wrong. None of that is true."

"The men and women who put on a uniform don't do it to become soldiers of fortune," he added. "That's not why they put on a uniform and go out and die ... They do it to protect our freedom."

The relationship between Tillerson and Trump suffered irreparable damage after the exchange, according to the book. It was shortly after the president left the meeting that Tillerson reportedly made the now-famous remark of calling Trump a "moron."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill on Friday about the book excerpt.

Trump has often railed against America's past foreign policy, lambasting prior administrations for entanglements abroad, not pressuring allies to contribute more to shared defense and not forcing other countries with U.S. military bases to pay for protection.

Still, Trump often touts the armed forces in public appearances and regularly references "my generals" when discussing top figures in his administration with military experience.

Comment: MoA has some more quotes from the paywalled article on WaPo:

The meeting in the Tank, a secure conference room in the Pentagon, were part of an effort to subdue Trump's insurgency against the top military's world view. and the presentation by top generals came off as a lecture which Trump immediately disliked:

An opening line flashed on the screen, setting the tone: "The post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation." Mattis then gave a 20-minute briefing on the power of the NATO alliance to stabilize Europe and keep the United States safe. Bannon thought to himself, "Not good. Trump is not going to like that one bit." The internationalist language Mattis was using was a trigger for Trump.

"Oh, baby, this is going to be f---ing wild," [White House chief strategist Stephen K.] Bannon thought. "If you stood up and threatened to shoot [Trump], he couldn't say 'postwar rules-based international order.' It's just not the way he thinks."

Bannon was right. Verbal scuffles about NATO, South Korea and U.S. bases followed. Then Trump took on the generals:

"We are owed money you haven't been collecting!" Trump told them. "You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business."

The discussion turned to the war on Afghanistan:

Trump erupted to revive another frequent complaint: the war in Afghanistan, which was now America's longest war. He demanded an explanation for why the United States hadn't won in Afghanistan yet, now 16 years after the nation began fighting there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump unleashed his disdain, calling Afghanistan a "loser war." That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military leaders at the table but also the men and women in uniform sitting along the back wall behind their principals. They all were sworn to obey their commander in chief's commands, and here he was calling the war they had been fighting a loser war.

"You're all losers," Trump said. "You don't know how to win anymore."

When one reads the recent Congress testimony of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan one can see that Trump has a point. The war is long lost and the military is lying about it:

"There's an odor of mendacity throughout the Afghanistan issue . . . mendacity and hubris," John F. Sopko said in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "The problem is there is a disincentive, really, to tell the truth. We have created an incentive to almost require people to lie."
...
"When we talk about mendacity, when we talk about lying, it's not just lying about a particular program. It's lying by omissions," he said. "It turns out that everything that is bad news has been classified for the last few years."

Trump's rant during the meeting with the generals continued:

Trump mused about removing General John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in charge of troops in Afghanistan. "I don't think he knows how to win," the president said, impugning Nicholson, who was not present at the meeting.
...
"I want to win," he said. "We don't win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we're not winning anymore."
...
"I wouldn't go to war with you people," Trump told the assembled brass.

Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, "You're a bunch of dopes and babies."

A drill sergeant act performed on recruits with four stars on their shoulders. I find that quite impressive. Those perfumed princes must have fumed.

The last president known to have called out the military in such a fashion was JFK.