Meghani reports that the nation's top military officer is defending phone calls made to his Chinese counterpart during the final days of the Trump administration In upcoming book by The Washington Post Bob Woodward and Robert cost to describe joint chiefs chairman Mark milley as worried about what Trump might do before leaving office and telling China's top officer he would warn Beijing in case of a U.S. attack Millie spokesman says the general was acting within his duties as the president's top uniformed adviser Trump says Millie should be tried for treason if the report's true At The White House President Biden was asked if the joint chiefs chair did the right thing Sagar Meghani Washington which of course if not directly responsible to the question a responsive to the question but then again that wouldn't be at first for this particular president I would simply offer a quick opinion here that regardless of what fears he might have had this was totally outside the boundaries of his authority to either be talking to his Chinese counterparts in particular or to speaker Pelosi who has nothing to do with this entire process So whether he was motivated by something good or something ill doesn't matter he stepped way outside of his authority in my view Let's get the view of all of you of course at one 8 6 6 5 O Jimbo one 8 6 6 5 O 5 four 6 two 6 with our guest retired army lieutenant colonel Daniel Davis who is a senior fellow at military expert for defense priorities dot org colonel Davis good evening Hi thanks for having me back on Jim Yes glad to have you with us tonight Regardless of motivation and I don't but for example happy to buy into the Donald Trump view that this would meet the legal definition of treason But it certainly was vastly overstepping authority and as far as I have concerned grounds for dismissal I could not agree with you more strongly This is wrong every single way you want to look at it And in fact I've written a piece today that calls for his resignation or his being relieved of duty if he doesn't want to go down that path And the reason I say that is because look the story that's come out and the one that apparently The Pentagon is defending it just doesn't hold water I mean just point blank It doesn't hold water If he actually felt that way just on the surface of it then his first obligation is not to reach out to a general of communist Chinese military forces That's not the first place you go If you feel that strongly you directly go to the president or you go to the Secretary of State the Secretary of Defense you don't go to our greatest political and military rival That's just crazy on the surface of it But look let's go a little bit below the surface too The idea the president Trump was even contemplating and much less took any action towards going to war with China It was so stark that the general felt like he had to intervene How was even less water I mean just consider that Trump actually pulled back military action in the summer of 2019 when the uranians had shot down one of our drones because he was afraid a 150 people innocent people might die Now how much less would he be inclined to start a war with the nuclear power China that will probably cause tremendous casualties on this and possibly a nuclear exchange He would never do that He didn't take any action according to what's been reported So that's even another overstep that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff acted just because he thought maybe he would I mean there was no substance to it So in every way you want to look at it he needs to go Yeah it really does I don't know Nothing I suppose that President Biden says any more surprises me but to me the president missed an opportunity to frankly a cut loose a loose cannon and to give his generic response I have great faith in the general milley said nothing whatsoever devoted to question avoided the issue and I'm sure that for example President Biden would have felt less sanguine about the subject had general Millie tried to short change his particular control of the nuclear football And I got to say I was kind of disappointed I thought at the very least he would say well we're going to do an inquiry and an investigation and then we'll take whatever action appropriate I mean but not your first reaction to say you have complete confidence any because he has just shown that really he does not he had done earned complete confidence And look the reason why I'm so much against this invite you this is not a Republican or democratic issue This is an issue of the republic of our country because look there's melly is just as likely to do this to Biden In fact our is that he already has to some degree Besides what was talking about here he thwarted the odds of the issue of the withdrawal of Afghanistan He slow rolls the Trump administration He tried to behind the scenes push back on the Biden administration And what happens next year if there's another issue that's the chairman really Does it agree with Biden on that issue There's no reason why he wouldn't do it again So for that reason kind of to your point there.