Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on the ethical dilemmas of working for Trump

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2022

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

As secretary of defense for President Trump, Mark Esper was privy to a lot of the inner workings of the administration. In his new book, A Sacred Oath, he brings readers into the room with him, showing how certain controversial decisions were being made and how some others were prevented. In an interview with All Things Considered, Esper told Michel Martin about the ethical dilemmas of working for Trump and the reasons why he stayed: to serve his country, avoid what he calls 'bad things from happening,' and improve the military from the inside out.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Mark Esper, former Secretary of Defense,
0:08.0	is the latest from former President Trump's orbit to come out with a gossipy book about the administration.
0:14.6	And in this conversation, NPR's Michelle Martin presses him to respond to people saying,
0:18.8	look, you were privy to a number of bad things
0:22.0	happening but didn't do anything at the time and just saved it for a book deal. And he gives
0:27.9	an answer, but first, he starts off the conversation talking about how President Trump asked him
0:33.2	about shooting protesters during the summer of unrest following George Floyd's murder.
0:38.8	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:43.6	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
0:49.9	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
0:57.8	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:02.6	The Trump administration's former defense secretary, Mark Esper, has a new book out this week.
1:08.3	It's called A Sacred Oath, Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense
1:11.6	during Extraordinary Times. He spoke with our co-host, Michelle Martin, about the book.
1:16.9	In it, Esper says that former President Trump asked him and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
1:21.7	Mark Millie about shooting protesters. This was in the summer of 2020 during a meeting about unrest that took place after the
1:29.2	murder of George Floyd. The meeting started off pretty loud. The president was enraged.
1:35.3	He was very upset at what had been happening and it happened the night before. He was, he thought
1:41.5	that the protests made the country look weak, made us look weak, and us meant him.
1:47.1	And he wanted to do something about it.
1:49.4	And as we went back and forth discussing a number of things to include the deployment of 10,000 active duty troops, as you mentioned, we reached that point in the conversation where he looked, frankly, at General
2:01.7	Millie and said, can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something. And it was,
	...

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