MEXICO/PROTESTS/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Donald J. Trump in 2020 asked Mark T. Esper, his defense secretary, about the possibility of launching missiles into Mexico to ‘destroy the drug labs’ and wipe out the cartels, maintaining that the United States’ involvement in a strike against its southern neighbor could be kept secret, Mr. Esper recounts in his upcoming memoir…
In Mr. Esper’s telling, Mr. Trump seemed more emboldened, and more erratic, after he was acquitted in his first impeachment trial…
Among Mr. Trump’s desires was to put 10,000 active-duty troops on the streets of Washington on June 1, 2020, after large protests against police brutality erupted following the police killing of George Floyd. Mr. Trump asked Mr. Esper about the demonstrators, ‘Can’t you just shoot them?’”
-Maggie Haberman, “Trump Proposed Launching Missiles Into Mexico to ‘Destroy the Drug Labs,’ Esper Says,” nytimes.com, May 5, 2022