Former President Trump has proposed launching rockets in Mexico to destroy drug-operated drug labs, according to a forthcoming memoir by Mark Esper, his former defense minister.
The New York Times reported the news for the first time, receiving a preliminary copy of Esper’s memoir, “Sacred Oath: Memoirs of an Emergency Secretary of Defense,” scheduled for publication Tuesday.
According to Esper, Trump has raised the idea of bombing drug labs at least twice in the summer of 2020. Trump told Esper that the United States must “launch missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs.”
“They have no control over their own country,” Trump told Esper, according to a Times review of the memoirs.
When Esper objected, Trump said, “No one will know it’s us,” and “we can just launch a few Patriot missiles and take the labs out quietly.”
At first, Esper thought it was a joke, but thought otherwise as he watched the president, according to The Times.
Esper was defense minister from 2019 until November 2020, when Trump fired him after disputes over police brutality and racial justice protests that summer.
Trump threatened to deploy troops in an active anti-protest service, but Esper spoke out publicly against the proposal, angering the president.
“I serve the country in respect for the Constitution, so I accept your decision to replace me,” Esper said in a letter to Trump shortly after he was fired.
In his memoirs, Esper wrote that Trump proposed the deployment of 10,000 troops in Washington on June 1, 2020, according to the Times.
“Can’t you just shoot them?” Trump asked, in memory of Esper.
The 45th president worried about Esper during his time in the tumultuous administration because Trump seemed fickle and demanded loyalty from his cabinet at all costs.
Trump also seemed obsessed with his re-election campaign. Esper fears that Trump may have used the military to seize ballot boxes during the 2020 election.
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Concerns about Trump’s leadership are not new, as several of his former cabinet members also claim that Trump ruled with an iron fist and offered irregular or immovable ideas.
Former Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have privately raised the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office following the January 6 riots.
Esper does not believe that Trump should have been removed under the 25th Amendment, according to the Times.
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