Secretary of Defense Mark Esper orders troops to stand down, in escalating dispute with Donald Trump
Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper defied Donald Trump by ordering the U.S. military troops in the Washington DC area to stand down and go back to their base. But then just a couple hours later, Esper reversed this order, after Trump had obviously overruled him.
Now, this evening, Esper is once again ordering the troops to stand down and go back to their base, according to multiple major news outlets. It’s not yet clear if Esper is defying a direct order from Trump, or if Esper has simply worn Trump down and gotten his way. But it is clear that this is not what Trump wanted, as he has publicly called for the troops to be patrolling the streets of Washington DC.
This further raises the question of whether Mark Esper can survive all of this. He’s a lobbyist who was never remotely qualified to be Secretary of Defense to begin with. He has at times tried to stand up to Trump, but he’s in over his head. Now that he’s sorta kinda drawing the line at using U.S. military troops to patrol DC, will Trump fire him? And if Trump overrides him again, will he end up resigning in protest?
This all comes even as Mark Esper’s predecessor, General James Mattis, publicly ripped Donald Trump to shreds last night for his abuses of power.
