Oh, To Have Been A Fly On the Wall

The book describes one Oval Office debate, where Trump adviser Stephen Miller chimed in saying US cities had been turned into war zones.

That infuriated Milley who spun around in his seat, pointed a finger directly at Miller & said: "Shut the f--k up, Stephen." https://t.co/bSNKMrDU5B

— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) June 24, 2021

Something else from the same book:

According to Bender, Milley viewed the unrest around Floyd's death as a political problem, not a military one.

He told the President there were more than enough reserves in the National Guard to support law enforcement responding to the protests. Milley told him that invoking the Insurrection Act would shift responsibility for the protests from local authorities directly to the President, according to the excerpts obtained by CNN.

Milley spotted President Abraham Lincoln's portrait hanging just to the right of Trump and pointed directly at it, Bender writes.

"That guy had an insurrection," Milley said. "What we have, Mr. President, is a protest."

And there was this:

Milley’s problem was that he had stats showing exactly how many cities had protests—and the proportion of those municipal populations that were protesting.

For Milley, the numbers didn’t approach anywhere near a level that required military intervention—and he told Trump.

— Michael C. Bender (@MichaelCBender) June 24, 2021

I'm old enough to remember that Gen. Curtis LeMay wanted to nuke North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam. Gen. Milley is a vast improvement.

It always comes down to people.  Which is why elections always matter.