In their new book on the last year of the Trump presidency, reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonig relate the story of a dispute between Donald Trump and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Milley over the Confederate names on some military bases in the South. This argument took place in 2020.
From the book I Alone Can Fix It:
Trump called Milley at home one night. It was late…and Milley was in bed at the chairman’s official residence… “General, what do you think about renaming these Confederate bases?” Trump asked. “Mr. President, I think it’s absolutely the right thing to do,” Milley said, according to an account of the conversation he shared with aides. “But my base, my base . . .” Trump said, referring to his political base and his assumption that his supporters would oppose the renaming. “Mr. President, I don’t know anything about your base,” Milley replied. “But we should rename these bases.”
A few days later, in the Oval Office, Milley had an unrelated meeting with the president and a group of other advisers, including Pence, Esper, Meadows, O’Brien, Keith Kellogg, Pat Cipollone, and Stephen Miller. Trump shifted the topic to the debate, now raging in public. He put Milley on the spot. “General, what do you think about the Confederate bases?” Trump asked, knowing his answer already but seeming to hope the chairman might have had a change of position since their last conversation. “Mr. President, are you sure that you want me to answer that?” Milley said. “Do you want to hear it again?” Trump said he did. “Okay, I think you should change the names of all the Confederate bases,” Milley said. “I don’t think Confederate flags and statues should be in the public space. These guys were traitors. Thirty-eight of them were indicted for treason. And more importantly, Mr. President, they lost the war. They’re losers, Mr. President. They betrayed the country. We absolutely should change the names of those bases.”
Trump fell silent. “I know that opinion is different from many people in this room,” Milley said. “Mr. Meadows over here is from North Carolina. He firmly believes the opposite. But I wear Union blue. We won the war. It’s over.” Trump went around the room asking others for their advice. “Sir, I think it’s a mistake,” Kellogg said. “I’m a Fort Bragg, North Carolina, guy. Ninety-nine percent of the soldiers at Fort Bragg couldn’t tell you who Fort Bragg was named after. They don’t know who the hell Braxton Bragg is. It’s a power-projection platform of the army, and when people say they’re from Bragg, it means a lot.” Kellogg continued. “This ‘cancel culture’ is a mistake,” he said. “I don’t know where it ends. This reminds me of what the Taliban did when they blew up statues. You start destroying your culture. Learn from your history. Nobody says American history is perfect, but learn from it.”
At one point in the discussion, Milley said, “Robert E. Lee was a traitor.” That set Kellogg off. “Wait a second, Mark,” Kellogg said. He pointed to the White House residence out the window of the Oval Office. “That discussion was held over one hundred and fifty years ago. Andrew Johnson wanted to court-martial Robert E. Lee for being a traitor and U. S. Grant told him, ‘You do that, you find a new general. Let him go home.’ Mark, you better learn your history, because that decision was made a long time ago.” Kellogg added, “Mark, what happens when they want to take away one of the largest monuments in Arlington National Cemetery, the [Confederate] Memorial? What about disinterring the Confederates? Where does this all end?” Milley responded by drawing Trump into the conversation. “Mr. President, as you well know, all the graves in Arlington are in rows, except those Confederates, and they’re in a circle with their names facing inward,” he said. “And the symbolism of that, Mr. President, is they turned their back on the union and the Constitution. They turned their back at the time, they turned their back in death, and they will be traitors for eternity.” Trump looked at Milley with an expression of canine curiosity. He merely said, “Okay.” Trump’s advisers concluded that the president didn’t really care about whether military bases were named after Confederate generals. He had no ideology, much less a nuanced understanding of history and the nation’s sordid legacy on race. All he cared about was making sure the people who voted for him in 2016 would vote for him again in November. He was a transactional president. After all, renaming military bases would go against his well-established assault on political correctness. On June 10, Trump announced a decision on Twitter: “These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. . . . Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!”
Leonnig, Carol; Rucker, Philip. I Alone Can Fix It (pp. 182-184). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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