Mark Esper, the Secretary of Defense in the Donald Trump administration, called his former boss a “threat to democracy” on the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In an interview on CNN, Esper was asked if he viewed Trump as a threat to democracy three years after the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Yes, I do regard him as a threat to democracy, democracy as we know it, our institutions, our political culture, all those things that make America great and have defined us as, you know, the oldest democracy on this planet,” Esper said.
Esper said Jan. 6 is a “tragic day in our nation’s history.”
Trump fired Esper after losing the 2020 presidential election. Esper’s firing came after months of tension between him and president after he disagreed with Trump’s threat to use active-duty troops to quash civil unrest during Black Lives Matter protests after the death of George Floyd.
