OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Christopher Miller, then-President Donald Trump’s acting defense secretary, blasted former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other “geriatric” figures like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a new book that hits retail outlets on Tuesday.
Specifically, he calls them out for their behavior following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building, ripping them for panicking as well as “ruthlessly and selfishly” maintaining “their hold on power” while refusing to develop a new generation of leaders, according to an excerpt of his new book, “Soldier Secretary: Warnings from the Battlefield & the Pentagon about America’s Most Dangerous Enemies,” cited by the UK’s Daily Mail.
Miller writes that many lawmakers that day were “hyperventilating into the phone” while demanding to know if troops were on the way to protect them.
“At this point in time, I had been President Donald Trump’s Acting Secretary of Defense for approximately two months,” he wrote. “I had known when I took the job that it was going to be wild. But I never could have imagined anything like this—getting reamed out by a histrionic Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell as they implored me to send troops to forcibly expel a rowdy band of MAGA supporters, infiltrated by a handful of provocateurs, who were traipsing through the halls of the Capitol, taking selfies, and generally making a mockery of the entire institution.”
He then referenced his three decades in the U.S. Army: “I had never seen anyone—not even the greenest, pimple-faced 19-year-old Army private—panic like our nation’s elder statesmen did on January 6 and in the months that followed.”
“Do I blame a bunch of geriatrics for acting like a bunch of geriatrics? Of course not. But do I judge them for it? You’re damned right I do. Most of all, I resent that we are ruled by a bunch of geriatrics that ruthlessly and selfishly maintain their hold on power and refuse to develop the next generation of leaders,” he noted further.
The outlet added:
Schumer had called then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy at 3 p.m., after the Senate chamber had been breached, to say there were still Senators hiding in their Capitol offices who needed to be evacuated.
Schumer and Pelosi called several officials that day to demand help, including Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. Miller also was on their call list.
“I’m going to call up the effing secretary of DoD,” Schumer said of Miller while sitting next to Pelosi in a secure location. They called him around 3:44 p.m. the day of the riot requesting a “massive” response.
“Just pretend for a moment it was the Pentagon or the White House or some other entity that was under siege. They can logistically get there as you make the plan,” Pelosi allegedly said, according to the book. Miller also wrote that she ordered him to “get troops to the Capitol now,” which he considered ironic because they complained about the use of National Guard troops to quell Black Lives Matter riots around the country that sprang up in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
“As soon as it was her a** on the line, Pelosi had been miraculously born again as a passionate, if less than altruistic, champion of law and order,” he wrote in his book.
Miller also writes that then-first lady Melania Trump played a critical role during the operation to target and kill ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, sitting in one of the most important chairs in the Situation Room and offering some advice to her husband at the time.
Miller says that the first lady’s presence in the room was “unexpected,” and she came in as her husband’s executive team was “waiting for the final assault” on the ISIS leader.
“Secretary of Defense Mark Esper quickly gave up his seat and she sat down next to the President, who introduced her to us as if we didn’t know who she was. Her presence was unexpected, to say the least. I wondered how it would play in the press if word got out that the First Lady had popped in to watch a major military operation. Not my problem, I figured. And after all, it was her house,” Miller wrote.
The former acting defense secretary also notes that Trump requested that Brig. Gen. Marcus Evans, at the time deputy director of special operations on the Joint Staff, bring Melania Trump “up to speed.”
In the end, the ISIS leader blew detonated a suicide vest, killing himself, two of his children and two wives. Melania advised President Trump to make sure he talked about the military dog that helped locate the ISIS leader when he told the country about the operation.
President Trump agreed, Miller noted, and brought the dog to the White House to give him an award. Trump said at the time that he did “such a great job in capturing and killing the leader of ISIS.”
