Originally at https://www.msnbc.com
This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 27 episode of “The ReidOut.”
Now that Donald Trump is trying to get elected again, he’s pretending to care about America’s military service members and veterans — or at least trying to get you to forget all the ways he’s denigrated them.
This weekend marked six years since Vietnam War hero Sen. John McCain died. It also marks six years since Trump had to be shamed into releasing a formal statement on the senator’s passing. Trump’s pettiness in the wake of McCain’s death is just one example of his pattern of disrespect for America’s military.
Trump’s pettiness in the wake of McCain’s death is just one example of his pattern of disrespect for America’s military.
He has reportedly called fallen soldiers “losers and suckers” and told aides he didn’t want to see disabled veterans at events. He recently said the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest presidential civilian award, is better since recipients of the Medal of Honor, the highest military award, are either dead or have combat wounds.
He’s also denigrated the generals who’ve served under him, suggesting the execution of the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and calling his former White House chief of staff and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly “stupid.”
Now, another general who served under Trump, former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, is giving his inside account of the former president’s chaos. In a new book, McMaster writes about how Russian dictator Vladimir Putin manipulated Trump by playing to his “ego and insecurities with flattery.” McMaster also says Trump set the stage for the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 by entering into negotiations with the Taliban.
Trump’s threats to our country’s military aren’t just in the past. If he wins a second term, Trump has expansive and draconian plans for the military. He’s already plotting to fire top military leaders who don’t share his vision — an idea straight out of Project 2025:
“There’s woke at the top. They want there to be woke but these guys aren’t meant for woke….I would fire them. You can’t have woke military….You need people that want to win. They want to win wars. That’s what their purpose is, to win wars not to be woke.”
Firing top officers is one of many ways Project 2025 seeks to rebuild a military it refers to as “Barack Obama’s general officer corps.” In addition to calling for firing and freezing promotions for generals, Project 2025 also wants to rebuild and retrain the military. It would require all public schools to administer the military entrance exam for recruitment. The document also calls for the reinstatement of active-duty members who refused Covid vaccines and restoring their rank.
Project 2025 pushes for abolishing diversity, equity and inclusion offices and staff — ostensibly to make the military whiter and reduce women’s roles. It also calls to expand support for the Department of Homeland Security’s border protection operations. In plain English, that means deputizing the military to round up migrants.
It’s clear Project 2025 would enable Trump’s worst instincts when it comes to his role as commander in chief. The prospect of handing the reins of our military back over to him should terrify us all.
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On Monday, federal authorities announced the arrest of a Colorado man for allegedly lobbing death threats at election officials, judges and federal agents, largely using social media platforms known as hotbeds for right-wing extremism.
The arrest of 45-year-old Teak Brockbank is the latest in a disturbing trend of violent threats targeting election officials and other people framed as enemies by the vindictive MAGA ecosystem.
A DOJ press release summarizes the claims:
“As alleged, Teak Brockbank threatened the lives of multiple public servants on social media. Among other threats, he allegedly claimed that it was ‘time’ to put two state election officials to death and that he was obligated to ‘put a bullet’ in the head of a Colorado state judge.
An affidavit shows authorities’ concerns stemmed from statements Brockbank allegedly made via text messages and posts on two Trump-friendly social media sites: Gab and the JD Vance-backed video platform Rumble. The names of the officials targeted in the posts were sealed at the request of the government. Brockbank’s threats allegedly began in 2021, when Trump and his failed presidential campaign directed the movement’s vitriol toward the U.S. election system.
In one comment on Rumble in 2021, Brockbank allegedly called a Colorado judge a “communist,” claiming he’d be “justified” if he were to “put a bullet in this Mans head and send him to explain himself to our Creator right now.” That comment also made reference to “where we go one, we go all,” a phrase propagated by Trump-loving QAnon conspiracy theorists.
In July 2021, the same Rumble account posted that “there is no other way to fix this mess in Colorado and Arizona without executing these evil people,” going on to refer to election officials. In a Gab post from September 2021, Brockbank allegedly said that an election official “needs to- No has to Hang she has to Hang by the neck till she is Dead Dead Dead.” That same account repeated calls for hangings in “Communist Colorado,” claiming “we will have to do it ourselves!” And in August 2022, the Rumble account responded to a user who urged “taking” the country back with more death threats directed at another official. “Once those people start getting put to death then the rest will melt like snowflakes and turn on each other and we will just sit back,” the account said, adding that “those of us that have the stomach for what has to be done should prepare our minds for what we all ARE going to do!!!!!!”
The affidavit also refers to a text message Brockbank allegedly sent his stepfather in 2023: “Four judges in Colorado have removed President Trump from the ballot in Colorado” and “their names have been moved to the front of my list.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately overruled the Colorado state Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump was ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot, but not before the ruling resulted in a wave of violent right-wing threats that caught the eye of federal law enforcement.
What else should we expect from a conservative movement that continues to lionize those who engage in political violence?
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