Retired defense and military officials have condemned former President Donald Trump's statement that Gen. Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Milley since the former left office in January 2021, often rebuking the chairman, whom he nominated for his position, for how Milley conducted himself in the lead-up to and after the 2020 presidential election. The former president has continued to claim without proof that the election was stolen from him and has not conceded.
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In particular, Trump referenced a call Milley made with his Chinese counterpart during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, to assure the country that the United States would not launch a surprise attack. This call, despite Milley's frequent calls with military counterparts all over the world, led to scrutiny from Republicans who accused him of going around Trump to warn China.
“If the Fake News reporting is correct, [Milley] was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” Trump wrote in the post on Truth Social Friday. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been death! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act."
Retired Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, who served as the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2010, told the Washington Examiner that the comments "obviously are out of line" and defended Milley's service as both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as throughout his more than four decades in the Army.
"This proposed violence by any political figure is disgusting," retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said on CNN, echoing Murrett's sentiment. "It continues, and it really needs to be stopped, Jim. This is just serious business, and I'm condemning it if no one else does."
"He is the senior military adviser. He's not a commander of forces. He's the guy that provides advice to the secretary of defense and the president, and he also coordinates and oversees all the combatant commanders. So, you know, throwing the blame on him for all sorts of things that have occurred in government just seems to be malicious and, certainly, as I said before, vile," Hertling said. "And even if they did know what Gen. Milley's jobs were and what his performance requirements were — still doing this in a public forum to threaten to either hang or just shoot him for being a traitor, it is just bizarre."
Milley has told friends that he believes if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, “he’ll start throwing people in jail, and I’d be on the top of the list," according to a profile in the Atlantic.
Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who served during the Trump administration, said Monday on CNN that Milley's concern, to him, is "a legitimate fear," and added, "The president has also said that a second term would be about retribution, right? So, I think these are all legitimate concerns."
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Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), a hard-line conservative known for posting incendiary remarks, said last week that Milley was a “traitor,” described him as a “homosexual-promoting-BLM-activist,” and said that “in a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.”
The chairman is set to retire at the end of this week, and his successor Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the current secretary of the Air Force, will be sworn in to the new role.