• President Donald Trump was furious with Defense Secretary Mark Esper after Esper publicly split with him on whether to send in active-duty US troops to forcefully subdue protests, The Wall Street Journal reported.
  • Trump has repeatedly said he wants to “deploy the United States military” to quell protests following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
  • Esper broke with the president last Wednesday, catching the White House off guard at a Pentagon news briefing where he expressed opposition to sending US troops into American cities to tamp down civil unrest.
  • Trump was outraged by Esper’s remarks Wednesday and sharply criticized him at the White House, an administration official told The New York Times.
  • He later consulted advisers on whether he should fire Esper, and Esper also reportedly began preparing his own resignation letter, in part because of his disagreement with Trump on the matter.
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President Donald Trump was so infuriated by Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s public disapproval of his suggestion to send in US troops to subdue protests that he was on the brink of firing Esper, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Trump has repeatedly said he wanted to “deploy the United States military” to quell protests in Washington, DC, following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.

Trump warned last Monday that if a city or state fails to act, “then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” suggesting that he might invoke the Insurrection Act.

Esper broke with the president last Wednesday, catching the White House off guard at a Pentagon press briefing where he expressed opposition to the Insurrection Act and to sending active-duty troops into American cities to combat unrest.

"I have always believed and continue to believe that the National Guard is best suited for performing domestic support to civil authorities in these situations in support of local law enforcement," Esper said at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

"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," he said. "We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act."

He also walked back his characterization of US cities as a "battlespace" to be dominated, language the president used as well this week, and distanced himself from Trump's photo-op at a church and the forceful removal of protesters from a DC park that made that possible.

His remarks were not well received at the White House, where top officials were "not happy" with the secretary, CNN reported, citing multiple people familiar with the matter.

The White House has reportedly been frustrated with Esper's tendency to go off message and his lack of enthusiasm for the president's policies.

Trump was outraged by Esper's remarks Wednesday and sharply criticized him at the White House, an administration official told The New York Times.

According to The Journal, Trump consulted several advisers to ask their opinion of the disagreement with Esper and was intent on dismissing him. Esper is Trump's fourth defense secretary since the president took office in 2017.

Esper, meanwhile, was also reportedly aware of Trump's anger with him and began preparing to resign, in part because of their disagreement over the role of the US military.