Former President Donald Trump is lashing out at U.S. Army General Mark Milley as a “woke train wreck” just before his retirement as the country’s top military officer.
Milley is set to step down October 1 as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a position to which he was appointed by Trump in 2019. The general’s relationship with the former president deteriorated significantly by the time Trump left office in January 2021 and has since become adversarial.
In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump denounced Milley for enacting “perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history” by withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. While the withdrawal happened during the administration of President Joe Biden and was ordered by the current president, Trump had also ordered a full withdrawal before leaving the White House.
The former president suggested that all Americans should “celebrate” Milley’s retirement and said that the general would have been executed for treason in “times gone by” over reports claiming that he called his Chinese counterpart in 2020 and said that he would warn China if Trump ever decided to launch a military attack.
Mark Wilson
“Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, costing many lives, leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, and handing over BILLIONS of dollars of the finest military equipment ever made, will be leaving the military next week,” Trump wrote.
“This will be a time for all citizens of the USA to celebrate!” he continued. “This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States.”
Trump went on to say that Milley’s purported pledge to warn China was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
The former president argued that “a war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act,” before promising that his post would “be continued.” No other new posts concerning Milley had been shared to Trump’s Truth Social account by the time of publication.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Joint Chiefs of Staff via email on Friday night.
Trump’s purported comments to Milley concerning a wounded war veteran who was selected to sing God Bless America during an event in 2019 sparked outrage from many earlier this week.
According to a profile on Milley that was published by The Atlantic on Thursday, Trump instructed the general to never allow the disabled solider to perform in pubic again, saying, “no one wants to see that, the wounded.”