Former President Donald J. Trump issued a new statement Friday regarding Gen. Mark Milley and journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. The one thing they all have in common: Trump.
In the statement, Trump accused Woodward and Costa of making up information in their blockbuster book, “Peril.” On the subject of Milley, Trump claimed the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff should be tried for “treason,” a crime punishable by death, for calling for the aversion of a U.S.-China war.
“Does anybody really believe that longtime Con Man [sic] Bob Woodward, and his lightweight lapdog assistant Robert Costa, are implying in their book of fiction that I was planning to go to war with China, but that one of the dumber generals in the military called the Chinese to tell them that he will inform them if this action proceeds further,” the statement said. “Milley may have called, but if so, he should be tried for treason.”
Trump added, “I never had even a thought of going to war with China, other than the war I was winning, which was on TRADE.”
Woodward and Costa reported that Milley made two phone calls to Chinese Gen. Li Zuocheng — one on October 30, 2020 and the other on January 8, 2021, following the U.S. Capitol riots.
Milley wrote, “Half the world was friggin nervous” and said he instructed NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone to keep his “needles up” following the phone call with Li, and instructed CIA Director Gina Haspel to “aggressively watch everything, 360.”
“If it is actually true, which is hard to believe that he would have called China and done these things and was willing to advise them of an attack or in advance of an attack, that’s treason,” Trump said on the far-right news outlet Newsmax.