From Washington, DC
In the weeks that followed the defeat in the November election, Donald Trump’s head was focused on a single issue: unfounded allegations of alleged fraud. The obsession strained the relationship with his vice president Mike Pence and with other members of his administration, who saw how the then president increasingly represented a risk to the stability of the country. That’s what comes to tell Peril (Danger, in English), the new book by Bob Woodward, one of the journalists who investigated the Watergate scandal.
After “Fear” and “Fury,” Woodward’s books that also focused on the Trump presidency, “Danger” focuses on the mogul’s last days in the White House. A sort of final trilogy that tries, like other books published this year in the United States, to investigate what happened in the two months between the Republican losing re-election and leaving the government without attending the inauguration ceremony of his rival Joe Biden. Written with Washington Post journalist Robert Costa, “Danger” also recounts the early days of the new Democratic government and the challenges Biden encountered when he took office: pandemic, economic crisis and a democracy at risk after the assault by fanatics. Trumpists to the Capitol.
The scenes that revolved around the attack on January 6 are one of the central settings in the book. There, for example, appears the conversation that Trump and Pence had a day before, in which the former president insisted on his second to declare invalid the voters of the states in which according to him there had been fraud. Pence refused, maintaining that he had not found a lawyer to tell him that was within his powers as vice president. “Well, what if these people say you do?” (Says the book that) Trump asked. He was referring to the followers who planned the massive demonstration that the following day would become the mob that stormed Congress. Pence was adamant and Trump concluded: “You betrayed us. I made you. You were nothing ”.
Milley, the star
The star of the new book is not just the tycoon. The figure who made headlines this week in the nation’s media is Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US armed forces. According to Woodward and Costa, Milley was certain that Trump had suffered a “serious mental deterioration” after the elections.
Milley is still the highest ranking military man in the North American country. According to the book, during the last months of the Trump administration, he secretly called his Chinese counterpart twice to assure them that the United States would not attack the Asian giant. “General Li, I want to assure you that the US government is stable and that everything is going to be fine,” he told him in a first appeal made in October last year, before the elections. “We are one hundred percent firm. Everything is fine. But democracy can sometimes be messy, “he said in a second communication. By that time, the attack on the Capitol had already occurred.
The general didn’t just have those secret conversations. On his own, he also issued orders to be alerted if Trump ever gave the order to use nuclear weapons. The book ensures that Milley was not the only one in a state of alarm, but also other members of the administration feared a coup from the American right.
This week, in statements to a conservative media, Trump called the actions a “treason” and maintained that he never thought of attacking China. Biden, for his part, limited himself to saying that he has “great confidence” in the general.
The context
The White House also argued that “it is important to consider the context” in which Milley’s actions took place. “The outgoing president, in that time period, fomented unrest, leading to an insurrection and an attack on our nation’s Capitol,” said Press Secretary Jen Psaki. The official also indicated that, beyond what the book tells, there are “extensive reports and comments from members of Trump’s own cabinet” that “question the stability of the former president, his behavior and his ability to oversee national security.” from the country.
With the images of the attack still in memory, the city of Washington is now preparing to host an unusual march. For this Saturday, a demonstration is called in front of the Capitol to ask for “justice for January 6.” It is organized by the Trumpistas, in a new attempt to rewrite the history of what happened just over eight months ago. They are convinced that they are victims of political persecution.
“Our hearts and our minds are with the people so unjustly persecuted by the protest of January 6 for the fixed presidential election,” Trump accompanied them this week, insisting on his lie about the result of the elections. Just in case, the Capitol Police put the fences back around the property.
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