During his three and a half years in office, President Trump has succeeded in damaging every institution of politics and government, from the Department of Justice to the federal courts to the Foreign Service and the State Department to the intelligence community, public health agencies and beyond. But until fairly recently he had more or less left the U.S. military alone.
There were been some skirmishes with his first defense secretary, James Mattis — but in the end, Mattis resigned over a policy dispute, an event well within regular executive branch norms. But then, after being lobbied by a Fox News commentator, Trump intervened in the military justice system and pardoned three accused war criminals late last year, causing the secretary of the Navy to resign in protest. It turned out Trump had no more respect for the military than anything else.
Nonetheless, the military brass did as they were trained to do, which is to respect the chain of command. But Trump’s latest manic episode with respect to the Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has tested that relationship in some very troubling ways.
Monday, June 1, may be a day history will record as one of those close constitutional calls that happen from time to time. It’s pretty clear that Trump had been terrified over the preceding weekend after he was hustled down to the White House bunker when protests outside the White House became rowdy and a small fire was set in the basement of St. John’s Episcopal Church across the street. When the bunker story came out in the press, he decided he needed to put on some kind of a show to prove he wasn’t weak.