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Esper was President Donald Trump's Secretary of the Army for 14 months and then Secretary of Defense for 19 months until Trump fired him on\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2022\/05\/how-defense-secretary-mark-esper-managed-president-trump\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kermit Zarley Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kermit.zarley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-11T19:21:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/347\/2022\/05\/mark-esper.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"442\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kermit Zarley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kermit Zarley\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2022\/05\/how-defense-secretary-mark-esper-managed-president-trump\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2022\/05\/how-defense-secretary-mark-esper-managed-president-trump\/\",\"name\":\"How Defense Secretary Mark Esper Managed President Trump\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-11T19:21:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-05-11T19:21:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/8393f2e63455a2915f7ca277bf5a5d02\"},\"description\":\"Mark T. 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{"id":15900,"date":"2022-05-11T12:21:50","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T19:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/?p=15900"},"modified":"2022-05-11T12:21:50","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T19:21:50","slug":"how-defense-secretary-mark-esper-managed-president-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2022\/05\/how-defense-secretary-mark-esper-managed-president-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"How Defense Secretary Mark Esper Managed President Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>Mark T. Esper was President Donald Trump\u2019s Secretary of the Army for 14 months and then Secretary of Defense for 19 months until Trump fired him on November 9, 2020, right after Trump lost re-election. Esper\u2019s new book, A Sacred Oath<\/em>, is one of the more revealing books to be released lately by especially Trump White House insiders.<\/p>\n

It is obvious to me that Mark T. Esper is a man you can believe. So, you can trust what he\u2019s saying in this book. Trump has responded, as he always does to his critics, by calling Esper names, such as \u201ca stiff,\u201d \u201clightweight,\u201d and \u201cweak,\u201d the latter being Donald Trump\u2019s favorite go-to word for his critics.<\/p>\n

See what I say in my book, Bible Predicts Trump Fall<\/em>, about Donald Trump all his life calling people \u201cweak\u201d who criticize him. First Lady-To-Be, Melania, Trump\u2019s wife, had said proudly of her husband back in August, 2016, on the campaign trail, that when someone verbally attacks him, \u201cHe will punch back ten times harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

I believe if Donald Trump had lived in Israel in the time of Jesus of Nazareth and knew about him, The Donald would have called Jesus \u201cweak\u201d more than anyone. Why? Jesus began his famous Sermon on the Mount by saying, \u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,\u201d and \u201cBlessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth\u201d (Matthew 5.3, 5 NRSV)..<\/p>\n

To be perfectly blunt, Donald Trump is a child in a man\u2019s suit! But actually, that is an insult to children. As I stated constantly on my blog, and it is now in my book, during Trump\u2019s presidency, the man was psychologically sick, being a classic narcissist. But then, he\u2019s always been that way. There is no question about it. But there is a question as to whether or not Donald Trump is merely a sociopath\u2013who therefore cannot empathize with the suffering of other people\u2013or a psychopath, which is worse. I have a discussion about this in my book.<\/p>\n

The back cover of my book says, \u201cZarley thinks Trump\u2019s Bible photo op on June 1, 2020, was the turning point in his presidency. He gave a speech [at the White House] claiming to be a law-and-order president. Minutes later, he posed with a Bible in front of a church. . . . after Trump mistreated the Bible like that, he went AWOL on COVID and became a hypocrite on law-and-order by trying to overturn a fair election. He then incited the Capitol riot that resulted in death and destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Esper\u2019s book raises this question about whether Trump is only a sociopath or also a psychopath. The occasion for Trump speech and Bible photo op was demonstrations in U.S. cities by Black Lives Matter folk who were protesting police brutality witnessed by the death of black man George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Esper now tells in his book that that day, on June 1st, before Trump gave his speech and marched over to the church for his Bible photo op, he said to Esper and others concerning the protestors filling the streets there in Washington, DC, and other cities as well, \u201cCan\u2019t you just shoot them? Shoot them in the legs or something?\u201d<\/p>\n

Esper also reveals Trump\u2019s dimwittedness when he told Esper concerning illegal narcotics being trafficked into the U.S. from Mexico that our military should shoot missiles at illegal drug labs in Mexico to blow them up. Trump then added that U.S. authorities should merely remain silent about who did it and then no one would know. I think that remark of Rex Tillerson, Trump\u2019s Secretary of State, about calling Trump \u201ca moron,\u201d applies here except, again, that is an insult to victims of Downs Syndrome (I had a beloved uncle with Downs).<\/p>\n

Like many other sane and ethical people who served in the Trump Administration and now have tell-all books about that chaos, Esper is having to defend his having remained quiet about Trump\u2019s unethical, immoral ways and even stupid thinking during the time Esper served the president and now, afterwards, speaking out about it. John Bolton, Trump\u2019s National Security advisor, had to defend himself as well after Trump fired him and Bolton later wrote a book critiquing Trump.<\/p>\n

Esper also tells about Trump\u2019s irritation with two retired military generals criticizing Trump publicly. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, had called Trump \u201cimmoral\u201d in an op ed piece and added that he \u201cembarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump told Esper and Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that he wanted to recall generals McChrystal and William H. Raven back into the military and court-marshal them. Oh, great, a draft dodger president doing that! Esper said, \u201cDoing that will backfire on you, Mr. President.\u201d Esper says the discussion went back and forth, with Trump obviously not letting go of his evil desire. Milley placated Trump\u2019s anger by offering to phone the two generals and asking them to back off.<\/p>\n

Esper defends himself for staying in office by saying, \u201cI had to figure out a way to walk Trump back without creating the mess I was trying to avoid.\u201d Esper further explains, \u201cIf I wasn\u2019t there and Milley wasn\u2019t there, what would have happened? And what would it have done to the military profession for a president to call back to active duty two \u2026 retired four-stars and to try and court-martial them for publicly expressing their views?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know who is going to come in behind me, and I didn\u2019t have confidence that they would do the things that I was doing\u2013that they would push back. My concern was that they would actually implement some of these outlandish ideas. \u2026 If you\u2019re serious about your oath and putting the country first, then the higher calling was to kind of hang in there and try to keep things steady as she goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Makes sense to me. What do you think?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"