advice. he asked for candor, directness, and in any scenario, he s not looking for a bunch of yes men and women. and what that means is ultimately, he s going to have to make the decision about what s in the best interest of the united states. reporter: senator cotton responding to learning president biden didn t follow the military s advice. if all this is true, general milley, why haven t you resigned? this country does want generals figuring out what orders we are going to accept and do or not. that s not our job. the principals in control of the military is absolutely critical to this. reporter: he spent time talking about two calls with his chinese counterpart during the trump administration last aurkt and january 8th. right after the capitol insurrection. i know, i am certain that president trump did not intend to attack the chinese. and it is my directed responsibility and it was my direct responsibility by the secretary to convey that intent
general milley, i can only conclude that your advice about staying in afghanistan was rejected. i m shocked to learn that your advice wasn t sought until august 25th on staying past the august 31 deadline. i understand that you re the principal military adviser, but you don t decide, the president decides, but if all this is true, general milley, why haven t you resigned? senator, as a senior military officer, resigning is a really serious thing. it s political act if i m resigning in protest. my job is to provide advice. my statutory responsibility is to provide legal advice or best military advice to the president, and that s my legal requirement. that s what the law is. the president doesn t have to agree with that advice. he doesn t have to make those decision just because we re gen generals. it would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not
base. i have one final question. general milley, i can only conclude that your advice about staying in afghanistan was rejected. i m shocked to learn that your advice wasn t sought until august 25th. i understand that you re the principal military advisor. if all this is true, why haven t you resigned? senator, as a senior military officer, resigning is a really serious thing. it s a political act if i m resigning in protest. my job is to provide legal advice or best military advice to the president. that s my legal requirement. that s what the law is. the president doesn t have to agree with that advice. he doesn t have to make those decisions just because we re
delved into, one of them was from senator cotton who wanted to know that if general milley s advice wasn t followed by the president, why didn t general milley resign? here s that explanation. why haven t you resigned? senator, as a senior military officer, resigning is a really serious thing. it s a political act, if i m resigning in protest. my job is to provide advice. my statutory responsibility is to provide legal advice or best military advice to the president, and that s my legal requirement. just from a personal standpoint, you know, my dad didn t get a choice to resign at iwo jima and those kids at abbey gate don t get a chance to resign and i m not going to turn my back on them. what a moment to hear the thinking of our top military leaders. right, and of course, he s correct. this is the classic line between civilian authority and military
general frank mckenzie is the overall commander for afghanistan. i recommended we maintain 2,500 troops in afghanistan. reporter: when asked last month whether his military advisors recommended keeping 2500 troops there, president biden said this. no, no one said that to me that i can recall. general milley, that was a false statement by the president pof the united states, was it not. i m not going to categorize the statement of the president of the united states. general milley, i can only conclude that your advice about staying in afghanistan was rejected. why haven t you resigned? it would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is is not taken. this country doesn t want generals figuring out what orders we re going to accept and do or not. reporter: but books about the final days of the trump administration portray milley as doing just that, working behind his commander-in-chief s back because he feared