President Trump dismisses Defense Secretary Mark Esper

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The president dumped Esper two days after his Democratic opponent Joe Biden was declared the expected winner of the presidential election, a conclusion Trump refused to accept.
Esper’s increasingly strained relationship with Trump led him to prepare a letter of resignation a few weeks ago, an attempt to fashion a gracious exit in the widely anticipated case the president decided to fire him, have several defense sources, including a senior defense official, told CNN.

Esper had been on shaky ground with the White House for months, a divide that deepened after he said in June he did not support the use of active-duty troops to quell large-scale protests across the United States triggered by the death of George Floyd. in the hands of the police. Esper also said military forces should only be used in a law enforcement role as a last resort.

His remarks from the Pentagon briefing room were seen by many as an effort to distance himself from Trump’s threats to deploy the military to enforce order on the streets of the American city and went wrong in the White House. , said several people familiar with the matter.

According to several administration officials, White House sentiment about Esper has deteriorated for some time, with Trump and National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien seeing him as not fully committed to him. the president’s vision for the military.

For months, Trump and O’Brien had been frustrated by Esper’s tendency to avoid offering an unqualified defense of the president or his policies, administration officials said.

An administrative source told CNN that Trump had no respect for Esper, leaving the Defense Secretary with little influence and little choice but to succeed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Trump went so far as to mock his defense chief’s derisory nickname of “Yesper” at a press conference in August, a nickname given to Esper by defense officials who believed he was not. not gone far enough to resist the president’s more controversial decisions.

Privately, Trump had expressed frustrations over Esper for months, speaking at length about him during a trip to Camp David earlier this year, according to multiple sources.

Trump also publicly lambasted Pentagon leaders in September, accusing them of seeking to wage wars in order to increase profits for defense contractors. An angry Esper called White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to complain, defense officials said. Meadows appeared on television shortly thereafter and attempted to reverse Trump’s comments, saying his defense against Pentagon leaders had not been directed against anyone in particular.

Esper and Trump have also diverged over the very charged question of whether to rename military bases that honor Confederate generals. Esper supported consideration of the name change. The president refused to accept the idea.

The Senate voted 90-8 in July 2019 to confirm Esper, making him Trump’s second Senate-confirmed second Secretary of Defense. He followed James Mattis, who resigned in December 2018 following Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria amid the fight against ISIS, abandoning Kurdish allies and pulling US troops out of the torn country. the war.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

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