Esper Fired, Chris Miller To Be 4th SecDef Under Trump Administration

Jonathan Hoffman, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, adamantly insisted that NBC’s recent story covering Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s potential resignation was “inaccurate” and “misleading” via Twitter on Thursday. Four days later, President Donald J. Trump said in a series of tweets that Esper was terminated Monday.

“I am pleased to announce that Christopher C. Miller, the highly respected Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (unanimously confirmed by the Senate), will be Acting Secretary of Defense, effective immediately,” tweeted Trump. “Chris will do a GREAT job! Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service.”

The announcement follows an apparent fallout between Esper and Trump after a photo opportunity outside of St. John’s Church drew public criticism because law enforcement deployed riot control measures to clear out the protester occupied area to facilitate the photo.

President Donald J. Trump speaks during a briefing at US Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida. Photo by Michael C. Dougherty, courtesy of DVIDS.

Furthermore, Esper provided a written framework to remove the names of military bases that honor Confederate generals or leaders; Trump announced his opposition to such a move via Twitter on June 10, 2020.

Esper was the third secretary of defense under the Trump administration. He was appointed by Trump in July 2019, following both Jim Mattis and Patrick Shanahan. Mattis had resigned in December 2018 after major disagreements with Trump surfaced, leaving Shanahan to push forward as acting secretary of defense from Jan. 1 to June 23, 2019.

christopher miller, coffee or die — Christopher Miller while serving in the military and, most recently, as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Photos courtesy of Mike Nelson/Twitter and the National Counterterrorism Center. Composite image by Joshua Skovlund/Coffee or Die Magazine.

Miller was the special assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism and transnational threats at the National Security Council and is now the new secretary of defense, the fourth to be selected under the Trump administration.

From 1983 to 2014, Miller served in the US Army, and he has extensive interagency and joint special operations experience. According to his biography on the National Counterterrorism Center website, he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 with the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), with many follow-on deployments to both theaters.

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Joshua Skovlund

Staff writer

Joshua is a staff writer for Coffee or Die Magazine. He has covered the 75th anniversary of D-Day in France, multinational military exercises in Germany, and civil unrest during the 2020 riots in Minneapolis that followed the death of George Floyd. Born and raised in small-town South Dakota, Joshua grew up playing football and soccer before serving as a forward observer in the US Army. After leaving the service, he earned his CrossFit Level 1 certificate and worked as a personal trainer while earning his paramedic license. Joshua went on to work in paramedicine for more than five years, much of that time in the North Minneapolis area, before transitioning to a career in multimedia journalism. Joshua is married, has two children, and is currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism. His creative outlets include Skovlund Photography and Concentrated Emotion, which is where he publishes poetry focused on his life experiences.