Milley disputes claim he recommended Trump attack Iran

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN Politics

Updated 11:10 PM EDT, Wed September 13, 2023


CNN — Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview Wednesday that he never recommended a US military attack on Iran during the Trump administration, pushing back on claims made by former President Donald Trump and his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. “I can assure you that not one time have I ever recommended to attack Iran,” Milley said.

Milley, an Army general who is retiring at the end of the month as the nation’s top military officer, was Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the final 16 months of his time in office. He had an outsized role in some of the most consequential events of Trump’s presidency, including the response to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and actions he took after January 6, 2001, when he was concerned that Trump could go “rogue.”

Milley also became a significant figure in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents, when Trump claimed to have a plan to attack Iran authored by Milley. Trump was captured on audio tape talking about the plan with biographers for Meadows in July 2021 at his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort, acknowledging he had not declassified the document.

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump says of the document, according to the transcript of the tape, which was first reported by CNN. Milley told Zakaria he did not know the specific document Trump was referring to. CNN has previously reported it was not authored by Milley.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/13/politics/milley-cnn-interview-trump-iran/index.html

[Lonestarblue]

1. So in two weeks we will no longer have a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because

Republican Tuberville is blocking all military promotions. How long are Republicans, who claim to support the military but actually only support the wealthy shareholders of companies like Raytheon who fulfill military contracts, willing to let one Senator damage our national security and military readiness? Democrats cannot change Senate rules without Republican support. This situation is not acceptable.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. The alternative requires doing one at a time, each one needing a period of debate and vote

where normally, a whole group is done by "unanimous consent" and they move on. In this case, Stuporville is "objecting" to any "unanimous consent", which triggers the full promotion approval process.

There are over 300 waiting for action.

The GOP is trying to "embarrass" Schumer by demanding he "start" the "one at a time" process. And as part of their sadistic hostage-taking stance, they have noted that they could do the "top military" positions first and then move on down.

I think Stuporville is getting close to, if not has passed the antics of the Senate's previous "Dr. No", who succumbed 6 years after stepping down. I remember when Coburn single-handedly blocked payments to black farmers as approved by Congress and the Department of Agriculture by refusing to agree to the appropriations for those payments without his extraction of a ransom.

[Autumn]

5. How many can they get done in one day doing one at a time?

I say keep them in session and make the fucking republicans work for their paycheck.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. It's usually about 2 - 3 hours per person

because the standing Rules are usually 2 hours of debate, equally divided and then there is a "15 minute vote", which often takes much longer because they literally do it by roll call (they refuse to upgrade to voting "by electronic device" like the House does), meaning they wait for Senators to actually register their votes when their name is called, and then give any who missed it, one more opportunity to vote before deciding to cut it off.

There were some estimates that it could literally take 30+ days working 24/7 to go through the backlog and that's not counting any that are coming in after they start the process since promotions are rolling.

The only way to shorten that (aside from allowing the "unanimous consents" ) is to pass a special Rule to streamline it, perhaps minimizing the debate time (and you'll often have just a couple participating in the debate and they don't use the full time... but you'll also sometimes have others who will try to use up that time bloviating about nothing and only cursorily relating it to the nominee). Alternately they could bundle groups of names under that 2 hour debate - again, via a Rules change.

[Autumn]

7. They have nothing else to do anyway. Those positions need to be filled.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. They have a federal government about to shut down September 30

and since the House has gone complete loon and refused to do most of the appropriations bills this year while chasing after Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis, and Jack Smith, and are now trying to impeach Joe Biden, the grown-ups have to take over. And the few they did do have draconian cuts to funding, so the Senate has been doing that work.

It is anticipated that the Senate can also come up with at least a short term Continuing Resolution that can be attached to some other House bill (to use where they substitute the language with their CR language, thereby maintaining the House's mandated "power of the purse" ), and then work on a longer term "Omnibus" one or a bunch of "Minibus" ones in the same fashion - again to use as a "substitute" to replace the garbage from the House. There could conceivably be enough swing Republicans to move either/both across the 218 finish line.

[Autumn]

10. Yeah. And most americans works 8 to 10 hours every day and go home and take care of their families

and work more at home. The games those idiots are playing and the excuses grow thin. Let the house impeach Joe, they will look like fools. There is no way the Senate will go along with it. Ignore it like the bullshit it is, their impeachment is DOA Biden in the best President since Carter.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. I don't think they have enough votes in the House to impeach

We know that all 212 Democrats (where there is one vacancy that would have made it 213) will vote against it and they just need at least 6 Republicans in swing districts to vote against it (assuming all 434 seated members actually vote) in order to ensure a majority of the chamber is against it, and the impeachment fails.

Once an impeachment fails in the House, there would be no trial in the Senate.

Any "swing" Republicans, like Brian Fitzpatrick who represents PA-1 just outside of Philly, who votes to impeach, will really be targeted this fall for removal.

[scarletlib]

3. Trump vs Miley. Who would any sane person believe?

[oldsoftie]

4. The DoD has attack plans for every adversary. They'd be stupid NOT to.

Because if the need comes up in an instant, we need to HAVE a plan.
Trump knows this too, but he grabbed the Iran plans so he could try to make people think Milley was lying when he said TRUMP wanted to attack Iran.
And the Cult say "Seeeeee?"

[Redleg]

9. I wonder if Milley will reveal even more after he retires

I don't know him personally but I respect him for some of the stands he has taken during the Trump mis-administration. He seems like a straight shooter.

[FakeNoose]

12. I believe Mark Milley, he served the Potus as his job required

... regardless of his personal political convictions. That's what military men do, they serve the Potus.
Even when the Potus is an asshole, a weasel, and an inveterate liar.

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs, one of Milley's tasks was to have action plans ready to protect the country under any possible attack or threat. So the Iran "plan" was only that - a what-if-this-happened kind of a deal.

Because Chump is so stupid and completely naive about the workings of our government, he took that "what-if-this-happened" plan and turned it into an actual "attack-on-Iran" plan.

This is all on Chump, but Mark Milley is unable to talk about it because he took an oath of secrecy to protect the country.

[LudwigPastorius]

13. I think it's safe to say,...

that, if it comes out of Trump's hamberder hole, it's a lie.