Fire At Will

What was going through Esper's mind? "I need to take notes so I can write a book and tell everyone about this 16 months after the term is over?" So tired of Trump appointees having put themselves before their country. That is what this was. Not just Esper. A whole list of them.

— Bryan McGrath (@ConsWahoo) May 8, 2022

And then I read this:

Was that before or after watching Fox until noon?

Trump claims he was running the military by himselfhttps://t.co/3n2lVDPNb8

— Raw Story (@RawStory) May 9, 2022

As GI's returned from WWII, they decried the John Wayne movies in which he wins the war single-handedly.  Trump obviously learned his military prowess from those movies:

"This is a complete lie, and 10 witnesses can back it up. Mark Esper was weak and totally ineffective, and because of it, I had to run the military," Trump said.

"I took out ISIS, [Iranian commander] Qassem Soleimani, [Islamic State leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi, rebuilt the military with $52.5 trillion, created Space Force, and so much more.

"Mark Esper was a stiff who was desperate not to lose his job. He would do anything I wanted, that's why I called him 'Yesper,'" Trump added. "He was a lightweight and figurehead, and I realized it very early on. He was recommended to me by some very weak RINOs [Republican in name only] and that is what he turned out to be."

Get that?  Trump didn't need Esper or the DOD or any other part of the government.  He did it all himself.

(Trump also denies he wanted 10,000 troops in D.C. for the BLM protests, even though there's a contemporary record that this is exactly what he asked for.  He claims now he wanted that number of troops in D.C. on January 6th.  There's no record of that request at all.)

Since I started this, I found the statement in a form you can read (sorta) with some equally interesting commentary:

Everything's a lie and no comment on the cartel bombs https://t.co/MhFTQrBIy7

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 9, 2022

I fired him cause he did everything I wanted him to do is quite the interesting spin. https://t.co/HoQqA4owtG

— Janet Mullins Grissom (@JMullinsGrissom) May 9, 2022

Now let's see Trump respond to this:

Donald Trump wanted to shut down all American embassies in Africa and withdraw the United States military from the continent when he was in the White House, Defense Secretary Mark Esper reveals in new memoir https://t.co/nqFCCPh8zB

— Eugene Scott (@Eugene_Scott) May 9, 2022

And as long as we're on the subject of Trump firing people:

Five years ago tomorrow, this charming image of Lavrov and Trump behind the Resolute Desk used by American Presidents for more than a century. pic.twitter.com/AGrDRiFYfT

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) May 9, 2022

Day after Trump fired Comey five years ago today, then-President had his jovial secret meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak: pic.twitter.com/q05ohDu1eQ

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) May 9, 2022

This doesn't make me admire Esper.  But it does make me think Esper being there as long as he could and thwarting as much of Trump's nonsense as he could, was not all a bad thing.