Baker on Trump Hosting the Military Parade: The Army Doesn’t Serve a Politician but the Country, He Obviously Doesn’t See It That Way
RUSH EXCERPT:
BAKER: "Sorry about that Here we go One of the legacies of 250 years of the army is its tradition of being a nonpartisan armed Force, right? That the army doesn’t serve a politician. It serves the country. It serves the office of the commander in chief, not the political presidency in that sense. But President Trump obviously doesn’t see it quite that way. Just the other day, he gave a speech at fort Bragg that sounded more like a campaign speech than it did the words of a commander in chief. He he denigrated Democrats. He talked about his own election. He claimed the 2020 election was rigged, which is, of course, not true, you know. And the troops cheered him as if they were part of a political rally. Every time I’ve seen a president speak to a military audience, even when they’re describing policies, the audience keeps quiet because it’s not their job to be a cheerleader for the commander in chief. It’s their job to carry out lawful orders of the commander in chief. And he is, of course, he doesn’t look at it that way. He looks the military as a as a function of his personal power. During his first term, he asked his White House chief of staff, John Kelly, himself a retired four star marine general. He said, why can’t you generals be loyal like the German generals? By which he meant Adolf Hitler’s generals in world war two? John Kelly, as he recalls this, says he told him, well, you know, they tried to kill him, right? But Kelly, his interpretation of what he heard there was a president who didn’t see the traditional rules about how a president uses the military, but instead sees it as his own personal instrument of power. We should add that President Trump denies that he said that. But, you know, Kelly has many other examples. Other aides who have been around President Trump have heard him say things that made them question his interpretation of how the military is to be used as well."
