Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday on CNN’s “The Lead” that then-President Donald Trump incited the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol to undermine a free and fair election and the peaceful transfer of power.
Esper said, “I think it’s important at the end of the day that the January 6th Committee get to the bottom of what happened and understand it, make sure there is accountability and figure out how we prevent this from happening again. It was a tragic day in our nation’s history.”
Anchor Jake Tapper asked, “We learned in recent days that Kevin McCarthy was thinking about at one point or discussing invoking the 25th Amendment that allows a president to be removed from office. He was doing this in the days after January 6th. He ultimately concluded it would take too long. There are tapes of him saying this. In your book, you said you never believed Trump’s conduct rose to the level of need to invoking the 25th Amendment while you were in the cabinet. If you had been Defense Secretary in the days after January 6th, and it came up for a vote, would you have voted to remove him from office?”
Esper said, “You know, I don’t know. You have to be there in the moment to understand and assess the situation and have a chance to, you know, look at the president under fire in that moment. Clearly, what he did was antithetical to what we believe in as a democracy. He undermined the election for weeks. He incited people to come to D.C., stirred them up that morning, and failed to call them off. In my view, that is undermining our democracy, the hallmark of which is a free and fair election and the peaceful transfer of power.”
He added, “So, you know, I don’t know where I would have stood, but I would have taken a serious look at it, and I think come to the proper judgment.”
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