wasn t just milley that was talking to his counterparts in other countries or china. there were four or five other principals, some of whom clothed themselves in the trumpiest of appearances that were quietly going behind the scenes, talking to their counterparts in china. certainly, and defense secretary esper encouraged such conversations. this underscores this real sense of instability and even fear among the highest levels in the trump administration about what the then president would do in the aftermath of the election, and then the january 6th insurrection. that of the number of people said they felt they saw decline in trump s behavior and stability. that he couldn t perhaps be trusted, and i think it s milley s point there where he not only warned the chinese but then told according to the book, his senior aides, said if a process starts where the president authorizes a nuclear
strike. because he was fearful trump could do something catastrophic during the final days of his presidency. today, a spokesperson for general milley confirmed some of the major events described in the book by bob woodward and robert costa. his calls with the chinese and others in october and january, the spokesperson said, were in keeping with his duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability. but there is more to the story. abc news has learned that it wasn t just milley who reached out to china, in fact, a former senior pentagon official tells abc the first contact came from trump s former defense secretary mark esper, who conveyed a message to the chinese defense minister one week earlier than milley, saying the united states had no intention to attack. it is donald trump who chose milley to be the joint chiefs chairman but now he is saying milley should be tried for treason. if it is actually true, which is hard to believe, that he w
hill. those people include chief of staff mark meadows and the president s own daughter, ivanka trump. you know, i thought of this idea of your book as one of their roadmaps, as carol said, phil, there s a lot of open source reporting. so much of what happened on that day happened on tv. but i wonder, so much of the book centers around how general milley functioned as a bulwark inside the inside inner circle. talk about that, especially leading up to january 6th and through january 20th. yeah, nicolle. general milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, is not somebody that we heard a lot about in our day-to-day reporting at the time, but when we went back and did this deeper excavation for this book, we learned that he played a really critical role in trying to prevent the president from doing dangerous, illegal or unconstitutional things. and miley in those months between the november 3rd election and joe biden s january
mike pompeo, the secretary of state, according to our reporting in the book was just as concerned and would have these daily check-in calls with milley and meadows to see what was on the horizon, what sort of dangerous land mines were out there. so certainly they could speak to the president s state of mind, to his intent, you know, whether there was actually a plan on the part of president trump to do something illegal or criminal, we re not really sure. but, you know, there were a lot of fears at the very highest levels of the government that something dangerous could happen. i mean, carol, your book points out at the very, very tippy top highest levels of the government, the vice president didn t trust the rest of the government on january 6th. talk about what your report and why it has struck so many nerves. well, it definitely had the hairs on the back of our neck go up, nicolle, when phil and i were learning the very specific details. you know, there are a lot of
goes to so much knowledge in advance of january 6th of donald trump s corrupt intent. i mean you look at all of the sort of criminal law education we all got watching the mueller probe. i mean milley was going to resign. cipollone was going to resign. there s extraordinary reporting in the book about bill barr who did walk away. they all knew he was going to do something catastrophic in that period between election day and the inauguration. do you think they re worried about being subpoenaed by this select committee, phil? they certainly could be worried and, you know, milley is somebody, unlike the others who is currently in government service, he has an obligation to speak to congress when he is called. he testifies regularly about a range of topics before the congress, and so he s in a slightly different position than some of these former officials who have left. but you re right, and it wasn t just milley, it was bill barr, the attorney general, even mark meadows knew something c