Esper’s exit interview is a stark — but revisionist — warning about Trump’s lame

“I could have a fight over anything, and I could make it a big fight, and I could live with that,” Esper said Nov. 4, at a time when reports of his imminent firing were swirling. Esper added: “Why? Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”

One is that Esper’s warning about what would come after him is now a very real and grim one — delivered in no uncertain terms. The fact that one of Trump’s Cabinet officials would literally say “God help us” about a situation in which we now find ourselves should send shock waves through our body politic. Esper had a good idea what his fate would be at the time, yes, but this is still Trump’s defense secretary saying something pretty similar to what his first one, Jim Mattis, did: that Trump is dangerous.

That’s a big deal, which should escape nobody’s notice.

But the second is that Esper overstated his true history of standing up to Trump. There is a temptation among Trump’s opponents, whenever someone finds themselves cast out of the Trump orbit, to believe that they were truly persecuted. The reality with Esper is much more complicated than Esper suggests.

Yes, there have been clear and sizable fissures between the two men in recent months. That goes particularly when it comes to Esper’s reluctance to use the Insurrection Act to use U.S. troops to quell unrest amid racial justice protests. Trump and Esper also disagreed when it came to phasing out Confederate history from our military, particularly in the naming of military bases. And Esper in January said the United States would not target Iranian cultural sites, despite Trump suggesting differently in a tweet. These are real instances in which Esper took a stand that didn’t jibe with Trump, and they almost definitely contributed to his exit.

But it’s also true that Esper played the Trump game — and much more so than he let on in his Military Times interview.

In perhaps the one other most-trafficked quote from that interview, Esper set himself up as being uniquely unwilling to say what Trump wants to hear.

“My frustration is I sit here and say, ‘Hm, 18 Cabinet members. Who’s pushed back more than anybody?’ Name another Cabinet secretary that’s pushed back,” he said. “Have you seen me on a stage saying, ‘Under the exceptional leadership of blah-blah-blah, we have blah-blah-blah-blah?’ ”

The answer is an unequivocal yes — to the extent where it was used by the Trump campaign for his reelection.

On multiple occasions, in fact, Esper appeared onstage and on Trump’s (then-) favorite cable news station, Fox News, to praise his leadership in ways that, even at the time, were criticized as being obsequious.

“I’d like to thank President Trump for his bold leadership and support to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces,” Esper said while standing next to Trump at a late March news conference in Norfolk, in front of a naval ship brought to help with the coronavirus pandemic. “This is an unprecedented time for our nation, and your leadership is uniting the American people to defeat this virus.”

He added a few days later at a White…