Donald J. Trump’s references

We are grimly heading for a presidential election in November that surveys tell us very few Americans want — a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. A sizeable portion of the electorate has likely made up their minds and will be unfazed by the avalanche of political advertisements and speeches that will inundate our televisions, mailboxes, email accounts, social media pages, and cellular phones over the next nine months, leaving the election largely in the hands of independent and undecided voters.

What if, instead of depending on political action committees or the media, those people could just check Donald Trump’s references? Presidential candidates are, after all, campaigning for a job. If the voters who will determine whether he serves a second term in the White House had access to the opinions of his most trusted advisers, perhaps they could find insights into his character that would help them make up their mind.

Trump is among the most polarizing and controversial candidates in American history, surrounded by a never-ending array of intensely positive and ferociously negative portrayals, and the candid views of his inner circle might help those voters see the man without being distracted by the noise and insanity around him.

If they started with U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, who served in the Trump administration as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they would find that Milley criticized Mr. Trump in a 2023 speech referring to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol without specifically naming the former president. Milley said, “We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king or a queen, or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”

Richard Spencer, a U.S. Marine veteran who served as Trump’s Secretary of the Navy, said in 2019: “The president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.”

H.R. McMaster, a retired Army lieutenant general who served as Trump’s national security adviser, said this in 2021: “President Trump and other officials have repeatedly compromised our principles in pursuit of partisan advantage and personal gain.”

James Mattis, a retired Marine general who served as Trump’s Secretary of Defense, commented in 2020 that, “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.”

Mark Esper, an Army veteran who also served as Trump’s Secretary of Defense, said in 2023 that, “I have a lot of concerns about Donald Trump. I have said that he’s a threat to democracy.”

John Kelly, a retired Marine general who served as Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, also remarked in 2023 that Trump was, “A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”

Rex Tillerson, who served as CEO of ExxonMobil before joining the Trump administration as Secretary of State, settled for calling Trump a “moron.”

Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina who served as Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget and as Acting White House Chief of Staff, said on January 7, 2021, that, “It will always be, ‘Oh, yeah, you work for the guy who tried to overtake the government.’”

William Barr, who served as Trump’s Attorney General, said in 2023: “The fact of the matter is he is a consummate narcissist, and he constantly engages in reckless conduct that puts his political followers at risk and the conservative and Republican agenda at risk … He will always put his own interest and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, inducing the country’s interest. There’s no question about it. … He’s like a 9-year-old, a defiant 9-year-old kid, who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table defying his parents to stop him from doing it.”

John Bolton, who served as National Security Advisor for Trump, said this in 2023: “By the time I left the White House I was convinced he was not fit to be president. … I think it is a danger for the United States if he gets a second term.”

Finally, there are the 2023 words of Trump’s hand-picked Vice President, Mike Pence: “He [Trump] asked me to put him over the Constitution and I chose the Constitution, and I always will.”

With those 10 references, all from Republicans, all from senior officials selected by President Trump himself, all from men who collaborated closely with the president, and all from men that Trump believed were the best and brightest, how would the voters in our little experiment cast their ballot?

How will you?

Lance Janda holds a PhD in History from the University of Oklahoma and has more than 30 years of experience in higher education. He is the author of “Stronger Than Custom: West Point and the Admission of Women”, among other works.