President Trump wanted to deploy 10,000 troops to control protests in Washington, D.C., this week, according to officials familiar with the matter, the Washington Post and CBS News reported.
According to a senior Pentagon official, Attorney General Bill Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley advised against the deployment in an oval office meeting Monday.
“We need to get control of the streets. We need 10,000 troops up here [in Washington]. I want it right now,” Trump said, according the Pentagon official, the Post reported.
A senior Department of Defense (DoD) official told CBS News that on top of requesting deployment of troops, Trump yelled at Esper for breaking with the president when the secretary opposed the use of Insurrection Act. The 19th century legislation would allow the president to deploy the U.S. military nationwide for domestic law enforcement.
President Trump previously said he was weighing invoking the act to quell nationwide protests surrounding the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.
Esper then announced Wednesday that he did not support using the legislation in an apparent break with the president.
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JUST IN: White House wanted to deploy 10,000 troops to control protests: reports https://t.co/A1FhZUp2gc pic.twitter.com/CcKAsQp1DN
— The Hill (@thehill) June 7, 2020
I am one of them https://t.co/bB63cwKF44
— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) June 6, 2020
"In a meeting in the Oval Office, Trump expressed a desire to quell the protests by sending forces—not the National Guard but regular military—into American cities. Milley resisted. 'They got into a shouting match,' the senior military official told me."https://t.co/X3wcqc9c2z
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 7, 2020
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