Mark Esper: President Trump fires the US Secretary of Defense

Washington CNN — President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Monday that he has fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and that Christopher Miller, who serves as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will become acting secretary “effective immediately.” The President jettisoned Esper two days after his Democratic opponent Joe Biden was projected as the winner of the presidential election, a conclusion that Trump has refused to accept. “The last thing that our country needs is additional upheaval in the institutions designed to protect our national security,” Warner continued in his statement and warned against further firings of “any Senate-confirmed intelligence or national security officials during his time left in office.” Warner also said that “there is no doubt that our adversaries are already seeking vulnerabilities they can exploit in order to undermine American global leadership and national security during this transition period.” In the wake of Esper’s firing, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, held a secure video teleconference in the “tank” with the joint chiefs and combatant commanders around the world, an official told CNN. Esper had been on shaky ground with the White House for months and had been pushing back on Trump since 2019 – important context for today’s firing, senior administration officials told CNN. Esper, who did not want US troops in the streets during the unrest over the summer, told the President not to invoke the Insurrection Act, and in recent months was subjected to White House ire over his insistence that the Pentagon and US military not be part of the President’s reelection campaign, in contrast to the actions of Attorney General William Barr, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue.