A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
A number of former aides to President Trump worry about how he might use the military if he's reelected. That's because he's repeatedly said things like what he told Fox's Maria Bartiromo earlier this month.
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DONALD TRUMP: I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're the - and it should be very easily handled by - if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.
MARTÍNEZ: During the summer of 2020, Trump wanted to use active-duty troops to quell Black Lives Matter demonstrations. His then-defense secretary, Mark Esper, disagreed with him. Here's Esper speaking at the Pentagon that June.
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MARK ESPER: The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now.
MARTÍNEZ: Esper says he stayed on the job as long as he could, until Trump fired him that November. I spoke to the former defense secretary yesterday, and I asked him about how he remembers his interactions with Trump during those turbulent months of 2020.
We understand that after you said that, Mark Meadows called and screamed at you, I mean, really laid into you - expletives flying - and then at the White House, Donald Trump did the same thing. I mean, what was going on in your head when that was happening, when you were getting that kind of response to what you said?
ESPER: I'd have to go back into my memoir and see exactly how I wrote it. And what I said at the Pentagon, which I think is what you're referring to, is I stood before the American public at the podium and said that there is no need for American troops unless something like in the most urgent and dire of circumstances - right? - because we have deployed federal troops in the past in certain situations at the request of the governors, though. You think about the times of segregation. But in this circumstance, when the discussion within the Oval Office two days earlier was about using active-duty troops to put down protests, peaceful protests, I thought that clearly crossed a line.
And to me, that was the issue at hand, and that's why I felt because, as I wrote in my memoir, over the preceding two days, tensions continued to escalate in the country. More protests were breaking out in cities and, of course, now there was this shadow of the United States military being deployed. And I felt the need a day and a half later on the morning of June 3, I believe, to go out publicly and say I do not support invocation of the Insurrection Act.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, I was listening to an interview that you did a few years ago with my colleague, Michel Martin, and you said that when Donald Trump asked, why can't you just shoot them in the leg, that it was a suggestion in the form of a question. That's how you describe it. Why do you think he didn't just make it an actual presidential order?
ESPER: That tended to be his style, was to kind of talk in terms of suggestions or, wouldn't it be great if somebody did this, or - he was reluctant to give orders for some reason. I think he was trying to take the temperature of the audience to see if there would be receptivity. And, you know, when he said that, we were all stunned, particularly General Mark Milley and myself, who were - he was the ones we were principally talking to at that point in time.
MARTÍNEZ: Secretary, what do you think would have happened if Donald Trump had, indeed, made that an order?
ESPER: Well, in this case, to deploy paratroopers into the streets of Washington, D.C., the worst of the worst would be that you would see active-duty troops in the streets. Again, in the worst-case scenario, they would be armed. And in the worst-case scenario, like we saw at Kent State, they would fire their weapons. And I can say that with some credibility because I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne stationed in Europe. I understand the military ethic. I understand the nature of the Army. And I understand our history as well.
And to me, there were a number of really bad outcomes, not least of which what would happen on the scene to peaceful protesters or even protesters who weren't peaceful but who were violent. You had that immediate negative of people getting shot, possibly killed and what that means. You obviously would have a crisis within the government given the fact that active-duty troops were deployed in the streets of Washington, D.C.
MARTÍNEZ: You mentioned maybe a situation where it's urgent and dire. What would that mean? Give us a picture of what that would look like, where an urgent and dire situation would call for this.
ESPER: Well, you could look back through our history, or you could just imagine situations. I mean, the Insurrection Act was about putting down insurrections or rebellions. So if you really literally had an armed rebellion that neither law enforcement - and this is how I thought through the process - law enforcement, either local or state or federal law enforcement or the National Guard couldn't put down or control, that's when there is a role for active-duty troops in that scenario.
MARTÍNEZ: In 1968, Black service members refused to arrest people at the Chicago Democratic National Convention. Five dozen service members from Fort Hood were court-martialed. My colleague Tom Bowman talked to a retired senior U.S. official who said that if they - you - that if an administration use active military to deport migrants, that it could break the military. Secretary, do you see a similar scenario that you would be concerned about if that was something that an administration wanted to do when it comes to migrants?
ESPER: I don't believe that the active-duty military can be used to round up illegal persons in the country and deport them, if you will. I think it violates the Posse Comitatus Act, which basically restricts the U.S. military, the active-duty military, from performing policing actions within the United States. And so there are some exceptions here and there, but they're very specific. So I don't believe that authority exists. But I'm not a lawyer, and I think it's something that needs to be looked at.
MARTÍNEZ: How concerned are you that if Donald Trump were to have a second administration, that he would not surround himself with people like you that would push back, that he would have people that would encourage him to act out on these impulses, these inclinations, as you call them?
ESPER: My concern has always been in a second term that Trump and those around him learned the lesson that you have to get the right people in, people who will be loyal to you and what you want to do in your policies, people who aren't necessarily loyal to the Constitution, but to the president. And it's a big distinction. It's certainly a significant one when it comes to the oath of office to the Constitution that we all swear, but particularly the military.
MARTÍNEZ: Secretary, do you agree with John Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff and a former Marine general, who has said that Trump meets the definition of a fascist and, quote, "prefers the dictator approach to government"?
ESPER: You know, I've said what's - the terrible thing that's happened over the last several years is the public discourse has gotten too angry, too mean. There's too much name-calling, ad hominem attacks, etc., etc. So I'm not going to put labels on this right now. But what I said the other day was this - if you go open up the dictionary and look at how fascism or a fascist is described. There are certain elements. And as you pick through that, you can't help but see where John Kelly's coming from and agree with some of the descriptions. And so I think each person should make their own judgment. I'm concerned, and I've put my caution out there to others as a warning.
MARTÍNEZ: That's former Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Secretary, thank you.
ESPER: Thank you.
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