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Book: Top Pentagon Brass Feared Trump Would Attempt Coup; Justice Stephen Breyer Not Ready to Retire. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 15, 2021 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar. Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Thursday, July 15.

[05:59:48]

And we begin with explosive revelations about just how close American democracy came to the edge. Jaw-dropping excerpts from a new book about the aftermath of the 2020 election.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And these excerpts obtained by CNN's Jamie Gangel are from this upcoming book, "I Alone Can Fix It," by two Pulitzer Prize-winning "Washington Post" reporters.

Among the revelations: America's top generals feared that then- President Trump would attempt a coup after the election, and they planned ways to stop him. This was the first time in modern U.S. history that there was a potential showdown between the commander in chief and the military.

BERMAN: General Mark Milley and the other joints chief plotted mass resignations one by one, rather than carry out orders from Trump that they considered to be illegal, something of a reverse Saturday Night Massacre.

According to the book, General Milley also viewed Trump as an authoritarian leader. And as for the big lie, Milley told his aides it was, quote, "the gospel of the Fuhrer."

KEILAR: And in another scene in the book, General Milley publicly confronts the White House chief of staff during an Army-Navy football game and grilled Mark Meadows about whether Trump would fire FBI Director Chris Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel.

And the book also claims that Milley and former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, met privately, and Pompeo told Milley that the, quote, "crazies are taking over," which is an account that Pompeo denies.

BERMAN: The book also describes tense moments that played out during January 6 and the aftermath, including Liz Cheney telling Jim Jordan during the Capitol riot, quote, "You F-ing did this" and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's fears that Trump would use a nuclear weapon during his final days in office. The book describes a private conversation she had with General Milley,

and he reassured Pelosi that the military would not carry out an order that was illegal.

KEILAR: And then finally, the book talks about Trump's disdain for German Chancellor Angela Merkel during an Oval Office meeting about NATO and Germany, where according to the book, Trump refers to the German chancellor as, quote, "that bitch Merkel."

BERMAN: All right. I want to bring in CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr and CNN political analyst and Washington correspondent for "The New York Times," Maggie Haberman.

And Barbara, just one more specific excerpt here I want to read you, because this really does tell the story about what was going on in Milley's head.

The chairman of the joint chiefs genuinely worried about the possibility of a coup. He says, "'They may try, but they're not going to F-ing succeed,' he told them. 'You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We are the guys with the guns.'"

To hear the chairman of the joint chiefs talk about contingency planning for a coup, it's pretty stunning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It is. It is jaw-dropping. There's no other way around it. They may be the guys with the guns, but Milley was going to make darn sure that those guns were not used.

What we saw, I think, from the time of the killing of George Floyd, through the summer of protests into the election and after the election, was Mark Milley begin to be far beyond the traditional portfolio of a chairman of the joint chiefs. That's the president's chief military adviser.

Milley was compelled to begin to track political developments in the country, and he's adamantly, adamantly someone who stays out of partisan politics.

He was tracking the protests. He very strongly believed that the U.S. military should not be called out on the streets against protesters. That this was a matter for civilian law enforcement. He wanted no part of it. Something he was tracking literally day by day.

And this whole notion of resigning. To understand Mark Milley, you must start with understanding he's a constitutionalist. He is someone who very strongly, more than anybody, believes in the Constitution. And that means military -- the military will not follow orders that are illegal, immoral, not proportionate. They just won't do it. And he took a stand.

You can remember that he started giving speeches where he talked about, never mentioning Trump, that the U.S. military follows not a person but the Constitution. He was signaling constantly that he wouldn't have any part of it. KEILAR: And Maggie, this happens, this revelation, these revelations,

as there has been a whitewashing of the what happened on January 6th by Trump supporters. So this is giving us insight into how Milley saw this to be so extreme of a situation in the months preceding the insurrection and, obviously, the day of the insurrection.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think, Brianna -- I don't think this is just pegged to the insurrection. I think the insurrection, frankly, was the end of Milley's concerns, at least based on my own reporting.

This, as Barbara said, began -- there was an intensity that began after June 1, after the Lafayette Square mess and what we saw. But you had this sort of triumvirate of Bill Barr, the attorney general; Mark Esper Esper, the defense secretary; and Mark Milley, who were countering what Trump wanted throughout the summer, which was to use the Insurrection Act in some form against -- which would be deploying active military on the streets of the U.S. to try to tamp down protests. They were, all three of them, very concerned about this. So this went on for a very long time.

[06:05:13]

And then one by one, you had Esper and Barr disappear. Esper got fired. Barr, by mid-December, simply could not take it anymore and -- and resigned and I think had told associates that Trump seemed different and, after the election, acted as if he had nothing to lose.

The backdrop for that was that, plus the fact there was this meeting I reported on in real time on December 18 in the Oval Office, where former lieutenant general Flynn and former national security advisor Flynn was presenting this notion to the president in the Oval Office about possibly using the apparatus of government to rerun an election.

So Milley had reasons to be afraid. And suddenly after having this triumvirate with him, Milley was alone. So I think it is not just the context of January 6th and the retrospective. I think there were a lot of events leading up to it that made him very concerned and then made him isolated in the face of what he feared Trump could do.

BERMAN: I've got to say, that's fascinating. He was scared, and he was alone.

And Maggie, there's one other point that I think you make that is so important right now. This isn't some history lesson. This isn't something, you know, we read in an encyclopedia now. This is a story about someone who is the current front-runner for the Republican nomination for president. Right?

HABERMAN: Right. That's right. I think people are losing the fact this is not historical esoterica, or just an effort to look at what happened for a book. This is talking about everything in the context of somebody who still has a very firm grip on the Republican Party. I realize there are some Republicans who get upset and think that we are overstating his control. We're not. Look at the events that are taking place. Look at every poll that

shows him -- even if he doesn't have a commanding lead, he doesn't have the 80 percent, you know, who want him to run for president again or want him to be the nominee, it's something like 55 percent. That's a lot of people.

He doesn't have to do what other people running for president would have to do. He could keep this opened up until early 2024 and not say what he is doing. So his footprint on American politics is huge. And so understanding how he governed is really important as we are looking at the next election.

KEILAR: Milley, Barbara, essentially predicted this end point, as Maggie points it, the insurrection. He talks about Brown Shirts, which of course, were militias who served the Nazis, as if they are the Proud Boys, as if they are the extremists who supported Donald Trump.

STARR: You know, taking -- I take the point that everything in this book is thoroughly reported out, and so let me start from the proposition that it's all true.

It is extraordinary that General Milley would reference anything related to Nazis. This is a subject, you know -- let's be very blunt -- decades and decades after World War II, that is extraordinarily sensitive.

U.S. military personnel do not use Nazi terminology. That, to me, shows how dire he felt it was, that he -- He's a very plainspoken person. Anybody who knows him will chuckle at just how plainspoken he can be.

But this should be a massive indicator. This type of language from the chairman of the joint chiefs should be a massive indicator of the level to which he was personally, professionally disturbed by what he saw.

And I think what Milley, as much as he was beyond the traditional portfolio of a chairman, because he had to be, in his view, what he also saw at that time, I can tell you, is that his job was to do everything to stop it from going over the edge. That is really what his goal was, to be present. He didn't travel out of town. He stayed close to Washington, close to the White House, close to all the key personnel that he was talking to. He had his finger on the pulse. He was constantly reading the room, so to speak.

And he wanted to make sure that nothing tripped over that edge. He put himself out there. Not a traditional role. Something that I think even General Milley would probably say should not have happened. This is not the job of the U.S. military.

But at that time, with nobody else around, Milley is someone who had the influence, the power, someone who was being listened to by key people, and especially listened to by people by Nancy Pelosi, who was calling over to the Pentagon, not infrequently to try and get her sense of what was going on. Not the things that we see happen around here every day. BERMAN: Just remember, Mark Milley, Trump appointee, as chairman of

the joint chiefs, also here, which is not insignificant.

Listen, Barbara, thank you.

Maggie, stick around. We're going to have more revelations, including why Liz Cheney slapped Jim Jordan's hand, and what Milley told Nancy Pelosi over her fears that the former president would fire nuclear weapons in his final days.

[06:10:14]

KEILAR: Plus, just in, the world has been waiting to hear whether Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will retire, and now a CNN reporter just got the first interview with him about those potential plans. Stay right here.

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BERMAN: Major new revelations about Donald Trump's final days in office in the new book "I Alone Can Fix It." The book describes a conversation between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and General Mark Milley as Trump refused to accept the election results.

Quote, "'This guy's crazy,' Pelosi said of Trump. 'He's dangerous. He's a maniac. We have deep concerns.'

"'Ma'am, I guarantee you that we have checks and balances in the system,' Milley told her. He walked her through the process of nuclear release authorities. 'Ma'am, I guarantee you, these processes are very good,' he said. 'There's not going to be an accidental firing of nuclear weapons.'

"'How can you guarantee me?' Pelosi asks.

"'Ma'am, there's a process,' he said. 'We will only follow legal orders. We'll only do things that are legal, ethical and moral.'"

Maggie Haberman is back with us. And Maggie, that discussion was actually reported at the time. We knew Pelosi had these specific concerns, and it may not be so much that the risk was ever, you know, a thermonuclear war. That may not be the real risk that Milley, especially, perceived here.

HABERMAN: That's right. I mean, in my reporting at the time and now in the months since, Milley was not concerned. The defense officials were not concerned that Trump was going to try to order some kind of illegal nuclear strike.

They were much more concerned about domestic situations and much more concerned about what he might try to do with the military domestically.

There was always the concern about a foreign engagement, like a strike against Iran, but frankly, that had been there for a very long time. This nukes concern, which as you say, Pelosi voiced publicly, was never top of mind for DOD officials.

KEILAR: And the book has this exchange in it between General Milley and Liz Cheney, who spoke after the insurrection. Milley asking, "How are you doing?"

And she said, "That F-ing guy, Jim Jordan, that son of a bitch. While these maniacs are going through the place, I'm standing in the aisle, and he said, 'We need to get the ladies away from the aisle. Let me help you.' I smacked his hand away and told him, 'Get away from me. You F-ing did this.'"

This is a scene that depicts a dynamic that we have seen continue among Republicans in Congress since January 6. You know, what do you think about this moment?

STARR: I think this moment speaks a lot to what you have seen with Liz Cheney in the months since January 6. She has been among the Republicans who has not wanted to move away from it.

You know, the argument within GOP leadership has been she shouldn't have -- shouldn't have had a leadership post and been talking about it. She clearly feels very deeply not just about what happened on that day but what the party's direction under former President Trump going forward could look like.

I do think that that scene is a reminder that there were a lot of people who had plenty of reasons to question things President Trump, then President Trump, was saying as they were happening. And it took that moment, it took January 6th, when you had his supporters hanging, literally, from -- from balconies at the Capitol building to say, Oh, this is a problem.

So I mean, Liz Cheney has been very outspoken since. She was not very outspoken before that, and there were plenty of things that he was saying that was problematic. And I think it's important to bear both of those things in mind.

BERMAN: And it's all a matter of degree. Put Liza Cheney on a certain part of the spectrum there. But then there's Jim Jordan, too. Because what she says there, I think, has some relevance, which is that there are a group of people who were involved, who were, you know, collaborating.

HABERMAN: There was not a small group of people who voted against certifying the election, even after what happened in that chamber and in those halls on January 6th.

And so, I think, there's two different groups, John. I think one is Jim Jordan, people who were very close to the former president, people who he saw as basically extensions of himself and his enforcers and his P.R. agents, even though they were actually lawmakers, and that was their job. And so Jim Jordan falls in that category.

And then you just have the broader category of people who were willing to go along with, you know, these claims about -- about challenging the election, despite what had happened. And I think in both cases, you have seen this calcifying of sentiment in the Republican Party. That is where all this has led.

BERMAN: And those are the people in power now.

HABERMAN: Yes.

BERMAN: Angela Merkel. The former president obviously had -- had an interesting relationship with the German chancellor. And he talked about an Oval Office meeting with offensive terms for Germans here. He said, quote, "That bitch Merkel. I know the F-ing Krauts. I was raised by the biggest Kraut of them all." And I think he was pointing to a picture of his father there, who, Maggie, was a German. I mean, I know.

HABERMAN: He was German except he spent years claiming that he was Swedish, so actually, that was part of what I was sort of intrigued by, in that anecdote.

Look, they had a -- they had a famously bad relationship, him and Angela Merkel. That he is using that language is not surprising. If anybody has spent any amount of time around him privately, that rings completely true of everything we have learned so far. This is -- this is the least surprising of it.

But it does speak to his difficult relationship with some foreign leaders, particularly women. Theresa May and Angela Merkel were among the toughest relationships that he had while he was in office, and -- and this just underscores it.

BERMAN: Maggie Haberman -- I'm sorry.

HABERMAN: I was just going to say, he didn't do well with strong, female foreign leaders. And we saw that dynamic play out where he seemed to feel sometimes that they got the best of him. He really, especially when it came to women, didn't like how that looked, I think.

[06:20:00]

HABERMAN: I don't think he liked strong women leaders, whether it was foreign or domestic. I think that was often something he had trouble with.

KEILAR: Yes. A very good point.

BERMAN: Maggie, great to have you. Thank you so much for being with us.

This is the question, I think, that so many liberals in the United States want to know an answer to, to a certain extent is driving them crazy. Will liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer retire? A CNN reporter asked him. We have the answer in an exclusive new CNN interview.

KEILAR: Also, major court victory for Britney Spears as she seeks to have her conservatorship removed. The charges that she wants to bring against her father. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:25:02]

KEILAR: New this morning, an exclusive new interview with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who is speaking out for the first time since the Supreme Court recessed earlier this month.

The court's most senior liberal justice has been facing pressure from those on the left to retire so the Democrats, while they still hold a thin majority, can install a replacement for him and ensure the balance on the court.

CNN Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic is joining us now with details about her exclusive one on one. OK, this is a fascinating interview that you did with him, and he sort of sidestepped some questions. But I think talking about the factors that are on his mind, as he thinks about his retirement, were very telling.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SUPREME COURT ANALYST: That's absolutely right, Brianna. I decided to go up there, you know, to just get a sense of what he was thinking, what might happen, because there's been so much speculation around whether he would give President Biden his first vacancy and appointment opportunity.

And I asked him directly, "Have you decided whether you're going to retire?"

And he said, "No," very flatly.

And then I said, "Well, what are the factors you would consider?"

And he said, "My health is the priority."

KEILAR: Health.

BISKUPIC: And then -- he will turn 83 next month. And then he said, "The court. The court is second."

He's quite an institutionalist. He prides himself in trying to bring some consensus across the ideological factions to the court. He has a high regard for the integrity of the court and how people see it. He's, you know, just written this book that's coming out in September about the peril of politics related to the judiciary.

So, these are things he's weighing, but I think they'll be things he's weighing through the next year. And very open-ended about when he will actually decide.

BERMAN: Joan, I have to say, for a lot of liberals waking up in America this morning, you're the most important person in the country, because they are desperate to know the answer to the question, is he staying or is he going?

He told you, no, he hasn't made a decision yet. But I think for a lot of people who really desperately want him to step down, that might be seen as a -- you know, I'm not going anywhere just now.

BISKUPIC: I think that's right, John. He's not going anywhere just now. He didn't say that explicitly, but that was certainly between the lines. He was really a reluctant interview subject. He hadn't wanted to speak about this.

But I went up there, and he was willing to give me some material to at least know what we can expect in the near future, but I think your reading between the lines is exactly what mine is, not for a while.

KEILAR: Didn't it also seem like he was saying to you, Joan, I really like my job.

BISKUPIC: Oh, my gosh, yes. Well, see what a lot of people don't recognize -- realize is that he now is the senior justice on the left. He speaks sooner in their private conferences. He has a greater chance to influence the direction of a case. And he's completely into it. Here's a man who, for 11 years, was the junior justice. He was almost -- he almost set a record for being the longest freshman justice ever. And then in terms of seniority among the liberals, he was sort of in the shadow of RPG, Justice Ginsburg, who was the senior liberal for a decade until she passed away in 2020.

And I don't think Justice Breyer can think that he will be on, as a senior liberal, signing opinions for a decade, but I think he wants at least one more year.

KEILAR: We've talked about this. Old is in vogue, right, Berman? We've talked about this. So I don't know: 83, 83 years young.

BISKUPIC: Eighty-three is nothing.

KEILAR: It is nothing. Joan, thank you so much. Great interview. We're going to have Jeff Toobin here with us to react to this, ahead.

And there's a scathing new report about the FBI's handling, the FBI's handling, of the USA gymnastics abuse case. We'll have details coming up.

BERMAN: Plus, Britney Spears one step closer to regaining control of her life, maybe. Why she says she thought her conservators were trying to kill her.

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