The former defense secretary's comments follow publication of a book by Mark Esper describing troubling moments during Trump's presidency.
"Can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?" Trump allegedly said in June 2020. Esper described the moment as"surreal, sitting in front of the Resolute desk, inside the Oval Office, with this idea weighing heavily in the air, and the president red faced and complaining loudly about the protests under way in Washington, D.C."
Esper also said Trump was the"biggest leaker of all" in the administration, adding that it was"generally bad" for the safety of the country. He also recounted a time when the former president suggested launching missiles into Mexico to"destroy the drug labs," and several instances in which he berated fellow staffers as being"losers."
In all, he described Trump as being an"idiosyncratic, unpredictable, and unprincipled commander in chief," and said he was explicitly responsible for the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. capitol.and activists viewed Trump as a national security threat in the aftermath of the capitol attack, which resulted in the former president's second impeachment in the House of Representatives.
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