Defense Secretary Mark Esper (left) and President Donald Trump.Photo: Alex Wong/Getty; Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Former Secretary of DefenseMark Esperwrites in a new memoir that PresidentDonald Trumpdidn’t like the look of the U.S. Navy’s ships.
“On multiple occasions, the president complained that the U.S. Navy ships ‘look ugly,’ while the Russian and Italian ships, for example, ‘look nicer, sleeker, like a real ship.’ Maybe so, but as I told the president in defense of the Navy, ‘Our ships are built to fight and win, not win beauty contests; we prize function over form,” Esper writes inA Sacred Out,according toThe Hill. “That didn’t satisfy him.”
A rep for the former president did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on what Esper writes of the president’s opinion on the appearance of the Navy’s ships.
Trump had threatened earlier that, if the unrest wasn’t quelled around the country to his satisfaction, he would send the military into states. Behind the scenes, Esper alleges in his new book, Trump had other ideas about how to stop the protests.
(Spokespeople for Trump did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.)
The aircraft carrier USS George Washington.Smith Collection/Gado/Getty
Elsewhere inA Sacred Oath,The New York Timesreportsthat Esper claims Trump asked him at least twice whether the military could surreptitiously “shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs.”
In response to an interview with 60 Minutes Sunday, Trumpsaid “no comment"when asked about the claim he wanted to hit Mexico with missiles.
The book — subtitled “Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times” — will be published Tuesday.
source: people.com
