Trump Denies Argument With General, Says He Would’ve Just Fired Him For Talking Back

Former President Donald Trump refuted reports of a shouting match between him and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, adding that he would have fired the general for simply “talking back.”

The claims first arose in Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender’s new book “Frankly, We Did Win This Election,” set for release in August, with an excerpt detailing a heated exchange between the two regarding last summer’s violent Black Lives Matter protests, Newsweek reported Monday.

The excerpt suggests that Milley and Trump had gotten into an expletive-filled shouting match after Milley told the then-president that he was an adviser and could not be put in charge of attempting to suppress the protests, Newsweek reported.

Trump wanted Milley in charge of protests last summer, but the nation’s top general was a military adviser—not in command of troops.

The argument erupted in a shouting match. “You can’t fucking talk to me like that!”@axios has the latest from my book: https://t.co/F0QIBfyFKi pic.twitter.com/IWsAUP21qA

— Michael C. Bender (@MichaelCBender) June 28, 2021

“I said you’re in f*cking charge!” Trump allegedly said, according to Newsweek, to which Milley allegedly replied that he was not.

After Trump allegedly told Milley that he can’t “f*cking talk to [him] like that,” Milley allegedly requested that a lawyer inform the president of his responsibilities, according to Newsweek. (RELATED: ‘It Was Pathetic’: Trump Goes After Mark Milley For Defending Critical Race Theory In Military)

Trump first made the denial of the exchange to Axios via a spokesperson, stating that it was “fake news” and that such an exchange never happened, also claiming that Milley had never talked back to him.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, repeatedly blew up at Trump over how to handle last summer’s racial-justice protests, WSJ’s Michael Bender writes in his forthcoming book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election.” https://t.co/LbmxcYh6b3

— Axios (@axios) June 28, 2021

“If Gen[eral] Milley had yelled at me, I would have fired him,” Trump said through his spokesperson to Axios, claiming that Bender had never asked him about the exchange.

Bender defended his allegations to Axios, saying, “This exchange was confirmed by multiple senior administration officials during the course of hundreds of hours of interviews with dozens of top Trump World aides for this book.”

Bender claimed that the former president did not reply to inquiries during the fact-checking process, according to Axios.