Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has long been retired, but his shadow loomed large over a Senate hearing to confirm a new chairman on Tuesday.
At the confirmation hearing for Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, Democrat senators on the Armed Services Committee responsible for confirming Pentagon nominees evoked Milley as an example of a chairman who was punished by Trump for simply standing up to him.
For example, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) claimed:
Let me just mention what happens to people who stand up to President Trump. General Milley was a former chair of Joint Chiefs, stood up to President Trump, and here’s what happened to him. President Trump took away his security detail, his security clearance, even took down his portrait in the Pentagon. That’s not all. General Milley is now under investigation by the department’s inspector general to see if he will be able to retire as a four-star general. It’s always a challenge to stand up to this President.
However, Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN), a Navy veteran and former congressman who grilled Milley at the House Armed Services Committee over his support for wokeness in the military as well as his insubordination to the commander-in-chief, countered that portrayal.
Banks went into a lengthy explanation of why Milley was not a model chairman, and got Caine to agree on the inappropriateness of his behavior.
Banks told Caine:
General Milley modeled inappropriate and political behavior to a whole generation of officers, and it’s why I fully support President Trump’s decision to relieve General C.Q. Brown, and the unconventional decision to go beyond the usual four star choices and pick an outsider like you for this most important role. …
As I said before, General Milley was the most political Chairman of the Joint Chiefs that — I believe — that we’ve ever had. He actively undermined his commander-in-chief. General Milley admitted to calling Speaker Pelosi and disparaging President Trump’s mental fitness and questioning his nuclear command authority. That was completely inappropriate and unacceptable.
Asked how he would communicate differently with congressional leadership, Caine said, “Well, Senator, I’m committed to open and transparent communication, but the first duty of the chairman is the adviser to the president. And so, you know, I would flow through that, that chain of command while providing always options to the president.”
Banks reminded Caine that Milley had admitted to wasting nearly six million man hours on diversity, equity, and inclusion and woke trainings, and had said he wanted to read more about critical race theory and understand “white rage.”
Asked what training he would focus on, Caine said he would expect service members to focus on war-fighting, lethality, and readiness.
Banks reminded Caine that Milley told aides that Trump was preaching “The gospel of the Führer,” and asked Caine if he agreed with the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff CQ Brown that that was inappropriate. Caine responded, “I do, Senator.”
Banks noted that Milley testified that he regularly did interviews with the press — as many as four times a week — and asked Caine whether that was an appropriate use of the chairman’s job.
“Senator, I just, if confirmed, I’ll spend my time focused on the essential tasks in front of me,” Caine responded.
Lastly, Banks asked Caine whether it was appropriate for Milley to promise Chinese generals that he would warn them if the U.S. was about to attack.
“Do you think it’s inappropriate or appropriate for the chairman the Joint Chiefs of Staff to warn our greatest adversary when we’re about to attack, or what we might do?” Banks asked.
“No, sir,” Caine responded.
The Trump administration itself has not hidden how it feels about Milley.
Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, a former Marine, mocked Milley’s “corpulence” in a statement earlier this year when announcing a review of physical fitness and grooming standards:
Unfortunately, the U.S. military’s high standards on body composition and other metrics eroded in recent years, particularly during the tenure of former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, who set a bad example from the top through his own personal corpulence. Secretary Hegseth is committed to restoring high standards, and this review is the first step in doing so.
Trump earlier this year pulled Milley’s security detail, and ordered two portraits of Milley to be taken down at the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has launched an investigation into Milley to review whether he should lose a star in retirement for undermining the president.
As Breitbart News reported in 2022, Milley reportedly wanted to resign in June 2020 and had drafted a resignation letter but decided to stay and “fight” him from the “inside.”
According to the book The Divider by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, Milley told his staff, “F-ck that shit…. . I’ll just fight him.” Milley allegedly added, “If they want to court-martial me, or put me in prison, have at it. … But I will fight from the inside.”
And according to the book Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Milley single-handedly took top-secret action to preempt Trump from ordering a military strike or launching nuclear weapons.
The book said Milley called a secret meeting on January 8, 2021, with senior military leaders, instructing them not to take orders from anyone unless he was involved.
The book also revealed that Milley had two back-channel phone calls with China’s top general to reassure him that the United States would not attack, even promising to give him a heads up if it did.
Those were just two accounts from a string of books published after the 2020 election that featured accounts from Milley given while he was still in uniform.
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on X, Truth Social, or on Facebook.
