Donald Trump fired Mark Milley from his role on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council on Tuesday. Milley is a retired Army general who served as the Pentagon’s highest-ranking uniformed officer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump and Joe Biden.
Trump announced his firing in a social media post, after Milley abruptly turned against him in the years between his presidencies, eventually calling him a “total fascist.”
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that his administration was also “actively identifying and removing more than a thousand presidential appointees from the previous administration,” as part of a purge massive during his first 24 hours in power.
José Andrés, a celebrity chef known for his human rights activism who served on the Sports, Fitness and Nutrition Council, was also fired. The same goes for Trump’s former special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, who worked at the Wilson Center for Scholars. Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, was also removed from the president’s export council.
Milley became a fierce critic of Trump after the president’s first term. Last year, he told veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward of Trump: “No one has ever been more dangerous to this country. »
“He’s the most dangerous person ever.” I had my suspicions when I told you about his mental decline etc., but now I realize he is a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person for this country. A fascist at heart.
Biden preemptively pardoned Milley Monday morning, in one of his final acts in office. Trump previously said that a phone call from Milley to Chinese officials following the January 6 insurrection, in which Milley sought to reassure the country about the state of the United States, was an “act of treason.” which was “so blatant that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
In a sign that Trump continues to harbor ill will toward Milley, a portrait of the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was ordered to be removed from the Pentagon on Monday, the New York Times reported.
Andrés is the founder of World Central Kitchen (WCK), a non-profit organization that seeks to provide food to people living in disaster areas. He criticized Israel’s war on Gaza, particularly after seven WCK personnel were killed in an IDF airstrike in Gaza in April 2024.
In an article on X, Andrés contradicted Trump’s claim that he was fired.
“I submitted my resignation last week… my two-year term was already over,” Andrés wrote, along with a shrugging emoji and a laughing emoji.
after newsletter promotion
He added: “I hope @realdonaldtrump will exercise his presidential authority so the Council can continue to advocate for fitness and good health for all Americans. These are bipartisan issues…non-partisan issues.
Read more of the Guardian’s Trump coverage
