CNN's New Day host John Berman introduced Barbara Starr talking about the "growing anxiety" at the Pentagon over Trump's final days in office.
"I talked to a dozen officers or so. Some in the Pentagon, some in other areas, and they all are expressing the same concern. The conversation is the same and it goes something like this: We don't know what he might do. This is their commander in chief. and they are concerned," Starr said.
"The concern is very clear, that the president might decide to use troops, the military, somehow, in his effort to overturn the election. The immediate question, of course, would be is how is any of this legal? But setting legality aside, why are they so concerned? Well, you know, Mike Flynn, the fired national-security adviser, former three-star army general, has now spoken publicly about using martial law, the prospect of it, and he has now met with the president.
She said Flynn's actions were being noticed in military circles.
"And I want to take your attention to a very particular tweet from a very significant retired general. Retired General Tony Thomas, headed Special Operations command, all special operations, for many years. He knows Flynn well. And this is what he tweeted, just a few days ago. Let me read it to everybody. General Thomas says, 'Mike, stop. Just stop. You are a former soldier. You know that leveraging the military to rerun elections is a totally inappropriate role for the profession. You are, also, undercutting the extraordinary trust and confidence America has in their military. Stop.'
"Telling General Flynn, don't talk about using the military to rerun elections. That's the concern that the active duty has, right now. Bow, the top, the most-senior u.s. military officer, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, hasn't spoken about this, directly and specifically. But just a few weeks ago, he very pointedly talked about what the U.S. military does and does not do.
"The Constitution. And in the latest development in all of this, undercurrent of anxiety, the four-star general who heads the Army, the chief of staff, and the civilian head of the Army, the secretary of the Army. Actually, of course, a Trump appointee. Those two men, a couple of days ago, felt compelled to publicly say that the military has no role in election outcomes. This is the conversation at the Pentagon."
