Top General Feared Trump Would Attempt a Coup After Election Loss: Book

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley was reportedly concerned then-President Donald Trump might launch a coup attempt after his election loss.

According to an excerpt from The Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker’s forthcoming book “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” Milley compared Trump’s post-election rhetoric to Adolf Hitler’s.

The book described how Milley had a “stomach-churning” feeling listening to Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread fraud in the election. As The Post reports, Milley drew a comparison “to the 1933 attack on Germany’s parliament building that Hitler used as a pretext to establish a Nazi dictatorship.”

“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley reportedly told aides. “The gospel of the Führer.”

The book says that Milley strategized with other officials about how to block a Trump order to use the military in a way that would be illegal.

The top general believed that in order to successfully carry out a coup, Trump would need loyalists in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Pentagon.

“They may try, but they’re not going to f—ing succeed,” Milley told his aides of a potential coup attempt.

He also tried to reassure lawmakers on Capitol Hill that there would be a peaceful transfer of power as he said that “everything’s going to be okay.”

“We’re going to have a peaceful transfer of power. We’re going to land this plane safely. This is America. It’s strong. The institutions are bending, but it won’t break,” he added.

Leonnig and Rucker also report that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pressed Milley for assurances that Trump would not be able to launch a nuclear attack after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.