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- Trump said he's "not into coups" and wouldn't want to do one with Gen. Mark Milley anyway.
- A new book reports that Milley was afraid Trump would cause a coup in the aftermath of 2020.
- The book, "I Alone Can Fix It," also says that Milley likened Trump to Hitler.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday said he's "not into coups," further clarifying that even if he was, he wouldn't want to commit one with Gen. Mark Milley.
An excerpt of the book "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year" by Washington Post reporters Phillip Rucker and Carol Leonnig and published by CNN on Wednesday said that Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other top US generals were afraid that Trump could take his desire to overturn the 2020 election to the point of leading a coup. Some top officials even prepared to resign en masse if necessary, the authors wrote.
"I never threatened, or spoke to, anyone about a coup of our government. So ridiculous! Sorry to inform you, but the election is my form of 'coup', and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is Mark General Milley," Trump said in a lengthy statement. In it, he also blamed Milley's appointment on Gen. James Mattis, who he described as "the world's most overrated general."
The former president went on to criticize Milley for apologizing for accompanying Trump in a June 2020 walk across Lafayette Square to St. John's Church, after the area was cleared of people protesting racism and police brutality. Shortly thereafter, Milley said he "should not have been there," and called the episode "a mistake."
"I saw at that moment he had no courage or skill, certainly not the kind of person I would be talking 'coup' with," Trump said of Milley. "I'm not into coups!" he added.
Trump took a now-infamous photo holding a Bible upside down in front of the church, leading some to conclude that the park had been cleared for the photo op. The inspector general for the Interior Department determined in June 2021, however, that the US Park Police and Secret Service did not clear the park for Trump's photoshoot, but to install fortified anti-scale fencing.
Another excerpt of "I Alone Can Fix It" published in New York Magazine revealed that Milley likened Trump to German dictator Adolf Hitler, who oversaw the Holocaust. Milley described Trump's refusal to accept the result of the 2020 election and his blatant efforts to subvert it as "the gospel of the Führer."