“I’m glad I don’t have to advise this President,” Myers, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George W. Bush, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront.” “I’m sure the senior military leadership is finding it really difficult these days to provide good, sound military advice.”
Myers, now the president of Kansas State University, said Thursday that the episode filled him with “just absolute sadness.”
“As I understand it, that was a peaceful protest that was disturbed by force, and that’s not right,” he said. “That should not happen in America. And so I was sad. I mean, we should all shed tears over that, that particular act.”
In recent days, Trump has faced an unprecedented revolt from the elite corps of ex-military leaders and presidents over his response to the protests.
Change, Allen wrote, “will have to come from the bottom up. For at the White House, there is no one home.”
Speaking from the Pentagon briefing room podium, Esper said, “The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.
Myers stressed Thursday that while he doesn’t often publicly address current events, “the people are doing what the Constitution allows” and that needs to be protected.
“There’s something about the Constitution, you know, all the power in the Constitution is described in Articles I and II, and they go to civilians,” he said.
“So as a — even a former military officer, a former senior military officer, I think — I still respect civilian authority.”