During multiple secret phone calls, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley promised China’s top general that he would warn the communist nation of an impending attack from the United States, according to a new book by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
According to excerpts first revealed Tuesday from the forthcoming book entitled “Peril,” as reported by the Washington Post, the first phone call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, just four days before the presidential election between then-President Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The second call took place on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the storming of the United States Capitol.
“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley told the People’s Liberation Army general. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”
“General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time,” Milley added. “It’s not going to be a surprise.”
According to the authors, Li trusted Milley enough to take him at his word after the first call, but was more resistant in the second call.
“We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine,” Milley assured the Chinese general. “But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”
Woodward and Costa interviewed more than 200 people for the book who agreed to share details from inside the Trump administration on the condition of anonymity.
Milley also reportedly took a call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi regarding Trump’s access to nuclear codes, agreeing with the decades-long California politician that the president was “crazy.”
“What I’m saying to you is that if they couldn’t even stop him from an assault on the Capitol, who even knows what else he may do? And is there anybody in charge at the White House who was doing anything but kissing his fat butt all over this?” Pelosi reportedly said.
“You know he’s crazy,” she continued. “He’s been crazy for a long time.”
Woodward and Costa wrote that Milley simply responded, “Madam Speaker, I agree with you on everything.”
Meanwhile, in a secret meeting, Milley ordered officials in charge of the National Military Command Center not to take orders from anyone except him.
“No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure,” Milley ordered, according to the book. The general then moved around the room and received verbal confirmation from each person.
“Got it?” Milley asked, according to the book. The authors wrote that Milley considered the order “an oath.”
The book asserted that “Milley was overseeing the mobilization of America’s national security state without the knowledge of the American people or the rest of the world.”
