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Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper claims in a new book that Donald Trump inquired about the prospect of bombing drug trafficking facilities in Mexico while he was president.
Trump believed the US could pretend it wasn’t responsible for shooting missiles across its southern border, according to excerpts quoted by the New York Times, writes Esper, who led the Pentagon from July 2019 to November 2020.
According to Esper’s book “A Sacred Oath,” Trump asked twice in 2020 if the military might “fire missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug factories.”
Esper was left “speechless” by the requests, according to the Times.
Trump fired Esper in November 2020, only days after President Joe Biden won the US presidential election.
Trump and Esper’s relationship had been tense for months, ever since the defence secretary publicly rejected using the military to stop the country’s anti-racist riots that year.
According to allegations based on other parts from Esper’s book, Trump questioned of the protesters in June 2020 when addressing the demonstrations: “Can’t you just kill them?”