Would Trump and Hegseth Have Protesters Be Shot? See What They've Said
Source: The New Republic
Would Trump and Hegseth Have Protesters Be Shot? See What They’ve Said
Michael Tomasky
Mon, June 9, 2025 at 6:00 AM EDT 6 min read
If you’d somehow forgotten what Donald Trump said to top military aides in June 2020 about the people gathered in Washington’s Lafayette Park protesting the shooting of George Floyd, now seems like a good time to remember.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in many interviews while promoting his book in 2022 that, during a White House meeting to discuss the protests, Trump turned to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and asked: “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?”
Naturally, Esper and Milley were both aghast. But now fast-forward to this past January, and the confirmation hearing of current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. As fate would have it, Hegseth was among the National Guard troops deployed by Trump to quell those George Floyd protests. Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii asked Hegseth about that day, and how he might handle a similar situation were he the Pentagon chief. Per The Washington Post at the time:
“In June of 2020, then-President Trump directed former secretary of defense Mark Esper to shoot protesters in the legs in downtown D.C., an order Secretary Esper refused to comply with,” Hirono said. “Would you carry out such an order from President Trump?”
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Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-hegseth-protesters-shot-see-100000057.html
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