Trump suggested shooting at Floyd protestors, claims Ex-Defense Secretary

Numerous books are due to be released this year written by members of the Trump administration. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s memoir is among the most highly-anticipated of these volumes.
Due to be released on May 10, “A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times” has been generating buzz for some time. It is a source of first-person information by a top Cabinet official that shows outsiders what was happening inside the White House during the Trump administration. To avoid divulging classified information, A Sacred Oath was vetted by the top brass at the Pentagon, including 4-star generals, senior civilians, and other Cabinet members.
Axios reported excerpts from the book on Monday, May 2. Business Insider offered readers a closer look at these passages. According to Esper, Trump had enquired whether the demonstrators protesting the killing of George Floyd could be shot at. It was in June of 2020, just after Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer. The then-President was getting furious by the moment at the escalating situation, which culminated in his inquiring to Esper if the military could “just shoot them in the legs or something?”
As he processed this request, a red-faced Commander in Chief slammed the Resolute desk in what Esper describes as a “surreal” moment with the idea “weighing heavily” in the room. The only good news in this interaction was that Esper was fully aware that shooting the peaceful protestors was not an option. He called the bad news “walking Trump back” without creating the storm he was carefully trying to avoid.
While Esper did admit the National Guard was the best option to stop any protests that got out of hand, Trump told him he wasn’t doing enough to handle the high-profile demonstrations. The situation did not improve when the defense secretary publicly stated his opposition to invoking the Insurrection Act that same month. The contentious relationship between Trump and Esper ended when the defense secretary was terminated after the November 2020 election.
Esper is undoubtedly not the first advisor who clashed with Trump over responses to the Floyd protests, but he was among the most transparent.