- Mark Esper told Fox News that Trump "threatens our democracy."
- Esper, Trump's former Pentagon chief, cited January 6 and Trump's refusal to accept the 2020 election results.
- Esper also said he hopes Trump doesn't run again in 2024 because he's too divisive for the US.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday characterized former President Donald Trump as a threat to US democracy, citing his role in inciting the deadly January 6 insurrection and his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election he lost.
"I think that given the events of January 6, given how he has undermined the election results, he incited people to come to DC, stirred them up that morning, and failed to call them off — to me, that threatens our democracy," Esper, who served as Trump's Pentagon chief from July 2019 to November 2020, told Fox News' Bret Baier.
"What else can you conclude, Bret?" Esper added. It was a remarkable rebuke of a former president by one of the most senior cabinet members who had worked for them.
As Esper alluded to, Trump rejected the 2020 election results and falsely claimed he won, pushing baseless allegations of mass voter fraud and pressing the Justice Department to declare the results corrupt. In the process, Trump incited a deadly riot at the US Capitol on January 6 when lawmakers met to certify President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.
Many democracy watchdogs and top experts have also warned that Trump poses a threat to fundamental democratic norms and have said his behavior mirrors that of authoritarians. Freedom House's annual "Freedom in the World" report in 2021 said that Trump oversaw "unprecedented attacks on one of the world's most visible and influential democracies."
Esper on Monday also told Fox News he hopes Trump does not run for president again in 2024, stating that the former president is too divisive for the country.
"I hope he doesn't," Esper said when asked if he believes Trump will run for president again. "I hope the Republican base can figure out that while President Trump pushed a lot of traditional Republican ideas…that there are other candidates out there that could run that could do it without dividing the people, without creating such tension within the country, and do it by growing the base as well."
Esper told MSNBC on Tuesday that he would not vote for Trump if he runs again.
The former defense secretary and Army veteran, who wrote a memoir on his time in the Trump administration that was published Tuesday, has sat for a number of interviews with major outlets in recent days.
Trump, for his part, has denied many of the claims in Esper's book. In a statement to "60 Minutes," Trump referred to Esper as a "lightweight."
"Mark Esper was weak and totally ineffective, and because of it, I had to run the military," Trump said.