Today, The Washington Post published excerpts of a new book by reporters Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker that contains astonishing detailsof how concerned the military and specifically Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley were about former President Trump's actions in the final days of his administration.To talk about that, I'm joined by Yamiche Alcindor and Nick Schifrin.Hello to both of you. Some blockbuster material in this book. But, Nick, let's start with what we were just discussing.And a lot of it has to do with the fears on the part of the Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley. What were they?Yes. So, Milley and other military's fears about what President Trump was capable of, about the lack of confidence in his decision-making really accelerated when Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.That was in early November, when Trump was threatening to fire other senior officials, including CIA Director Gina Haspel, and when he installed loyalists to run the Pentagon.Current and former officials I talk to say those loyalists pursued policy changes, traveled the world without any deliberation with other U.S. officials, without sharing details of their conversations.And so Milley, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others, really tried to hold the line on policy. They froze out Trump loyalists.They were feared -- they feared that those policies would be made on the back of envelopes. They feared that some of those loyalists might start a war even.And they feared that Trump could do anything to stay in power, including perhaps creating a crisis in the U.S. that would require the deployment of the U.S. military in the U.S.
