Former Defense Secretary says Trump wanted to ‘destroy’ Mexican drug labs via missiles

Donald Trump proposed ‘quietly’ launching missiles into Mexico to take out drug labs run by cartels, his former Defense Secretary has claimed in his new book, “A Sacred Oath.”

Mark Esper, who worked for Trump from July 2019 to November 2020, is publishing his book on Tuesday.

Esper says President Trump asked him at least twice if the military could “shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs.” Trump was confident no one would find out about them destroying the labs, the book claims. “We could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,” he’s claimed to have said, before adding that “no one would know it was us.”

Esper said he initially thought the former President was joking until he saw the look on his face. The former Secretary of Defence described Trump as “an unprincipled person who, given his self-interest, should not be in the position of public service.”

Esper also wrote that there were several officials around Trump who he thought were particularly dangerous. Stephen Miller, who was Trump’s immigration advisor, was one of them.

Esper claimed that Miller wanted to deploy 250,000 troops along the southern border, claiming that a large caravan of migrants was en route. “The U.S. armed forces don’t have 250,000 troops to send to the border for such nonsense,” Esper writes that he responded. 

In October 2019, when members of Trump’s team were gathered in the White House to watch the raid that killed the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Miller allegedly wanted to cut of Baghdadi’s head, dip it in pig’s blood and parade it around to warn other terrorists. Esper says he told Miller it would be a “war crime.”

Esper, 58, was fired by tweet by Trump in November 2020, with Trump saying he had been “terminated.” Esper was publicly sacked on Twitter by Trump just days after the former president lost his re-election bid.

Abruptly announcing Esper would be replaced by Christopher C Miller, Trump tweeted at the time: “Chris will do a GREAT job! Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service.” Trump has not yet responded to Esper’s allegations.