Outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley sounded an ominous warning that if former President Donald Trump is reelected President he will no longer have the guardrails that subdued his most nightmarish impulses during his first term and “will start throwing people in jail” according to his whims. Milley says he believes he would be “top of the list” of critics that Trump would invoke governmental powers to imprison.

Milley’s scary warning was included in an in-depth profile published Thursday of the veteran military leader by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, and the story, titled The Patriot, paints a frightening picture indeed.

“If Trump is reelected president, there will be no Espers or Milleys in his administration. Nor will there be any officials of the stature or independence of John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, or James Mattis,” Goldberg writes, listing a few of Trump’s former Pentagon leaders and former White House officials.

Trump has always made it clear that he wants to be surrounded by those so-called “yes men.” People who will do what he wants and who will let him do what he wants without question. He was horribly, horribly destructive as president, and will be even worse if no one is there to keep him in check.

“Trump and his allies have already threatened officials they see as disloyal with imprisonment, and there is little reason to imagine that he would not attempt to carry out his threats,” Goldberg writes, adding:

“Milley had told friends that he expects that if Trump returns to the White House, the newly elected president will come after him. ‘He’ll start throwing people in jail, and I’d be on the top of the list,’ he has said. But he’s told friends that he does not believe the country will reelected Trump.”

Let’s hope not, anyway. I don’t think Trump is likely to be elected either, but I’ve been wrong before.

Goldberg, who is The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, writes that when he asked Milley about the quote, the general dodged the question and instead expressed “optimism” for the future of the country.

“I have a lot of confidence in the general officer corps, and I have confidence in the American people. The United States of America is an extraordinarily resilient country, agile, and flexible, and the inherent goodness of the American people is there. I’ve always believed that, and I will go to my grave believing that,” Milley told Goldberg.

“After all you’ve been through, you believe that?” Goldberg asked, incredulously.

“There are bumps in the road, to be sure, and you get through the bumps, but I don’t want to overstate this,” Milley said. “What did I do? All I did was try to preserve the integrity of the military and to keep the military out of domestic politics. That’s all I did.”

In his story, Goldberg also recalled that Trump didn’t want to be seen with severely wounded American soldiers at events. Goldberg remembered earlier stories that Trump, as president, disparaged soldiers who died in action. He reported in September 2020 that Trump described Americans who died for their country as “losers” and “suckers.”

Well, Trump became a “loser” in 2020 and this is true no matter how often he denies it. Kindness and empathy have never been this man’s strong suit.

So really, we’d better hope he isn’t reelected ever again.