Donald Trump’s office has released a statement responding to comments made by former Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday in which he accused the former president of considering the possibility of firing missiles into Mexico to target drug cartels and carrying out military invasions in both Venezuela and Iran during his time in office.
Esper told CBS’s Norah O’Donnell on “60 Minutes” on Sunday that he had to prevent Trump from carrying out such events during his final year in office, and claimed that he wanted the general public to know that the United States had at that point been on the verge of starting another war.
“It’s important to our country, it’s important to the republic, the American people, that they understand what was going on in this very consequential period,” Esper said. “The last year of the Trump administration. And to tell the story about things we prevented. Really bad things. Dangerous things that could have taken the country in… in a dark direction.”
Trump hit back at Esper’s comments in a letter to O’Donnell over the weekend denying the claims made by the former defense secretary, whom he described as “weak and totally ineffective” in his role.
During the interview that aired on Sunday, Esper claimed that the former president had proposed taking military action against Venezuela, striking Iran, firing missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs in the country, and that at one point “somebody proposed we blockade Cuba.”
He further claimed that such incidents would “happen every few weeks” and that both himself and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley would prevent them from going ahead.
Regarding Trump’s idea to fire missiles into Mexico in an effort to tackle drug cartels and deal with the drugs issue in America, Esper claims that he informed Trump that doing so would violate international law to which he claims that Trump replied, “No one would know it was us?”
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Donald J. Trump statement on CBSN interview
