According to the book, Milley made the two calls, unbeknownst to Trump, to Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army to assure him that the U.S. was not planning an attack on China, and that if it were he would warn him in advance.

The split came as co-hosts Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines slammed Milley for making the calls if he had, while Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar said they would have been justified.

"I think that you break command in that way. You are committing treason. You’re going outside of the chain of command," Hostin said after Goldberg asked for her thoughts on the alleged calls.  "I worked for the government for many years and it is sacrosanct to go within the chain of command."

Hostin said she knew Milley's alleged actions were done to protect the U.S. from any wars breaking out, and that, according to her, Trump was capable of starting a nuclear war after losing the 2020 election.

"But I think there’s just no excuse for a silent coup, which I think that’s what that is," she added.

Behar jumped in, disagreeing with Hostin and placing blame for the alleged calls purely on Trump. 

"The whole time that Trump was president, I was home saying, please God make there be an adult who controls this lunatic. I was praying let there be somebody in the room who holds his arm back when he goes to that button," Behar said. "And God bless General Milley for straightening things out. I know that the chain of command is sacrosanct. I understand that. But this was an emergency. We had a certifiable nutcase in the White House."

Haines immediately responded to Behar, saying that she agreed with Hostin, but that she also agreed with Milley telling his subordinates to come to him first if there was any command dealing with nuclear weapons, calling it a "safety net."

"But to go to China is a problem to me … We don’t need to be going to people that are our adversaries," Haines added. 

Behar attempted to downplay Milley's words, seemingly making them sound like a harmless heads-up to his Chinese counterpart, as she went back and forth with Haines in disagreement over the call. 

"But he also said – this is the worst –  pledged to alert him in the event of an attack. You can’t tell China we’re coming for you," Haines said, interrupting Behar. "We are united in that thing, and even if Trump's in charge, you go within. You go within our country."

Behar attempted to say that Trump should have been removed by his cabinet through the 25th amendment, but was interrupted by Haines again playing devil's advocate and suggesting that Biden could be handled the same way by people who think he's being affected by senility, making him unable to make the right decisions. 

General Milley’s spokesperson has confirmed Milley’s phone call and defended it as part of his duties:

Note that nothing in the statement disputes the reporting that Milley told the Chinese that he would warn them if Trump sought to attack them. In other words, he’s not denying it. Probably because he’s proud of it or something.

Last night Levin ripped into Milley and the reporters who hid this for months just so they could make millions on a book:

 The Pentagon declined to confirm or deny reports from a new book alleging that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley overstepped his power during the end of the Trump presidency. 

"I can’t speak to the validity," Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby News’ Jennifer Griffin when asked about the specific allegation that Milley secretly attempted to prevent Trump from having the ability to launch nuclear weapons, a claim published in the new book co-written by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Bob Costa. "But I see nothing in what I’ve read that would cause any concern."

"It is completely appropriate for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the senior military adviser to both the secretary and the president to want to see those protocols reviewed on whatever frequent basis he wants to do that," Kirby said.

Watch Full here:

Kirby also declined to answer specifics about another allegation from the book that claimed Milley secretly told the Chinese military that he would tip them off if the United States was about to launch a strike against them.

"All I’ve seen is the same reporting that you’ve seen Jen," Kirby said. "I can’t speak to the specifics of the conversation."

Later in the briefing, Kirby was pressed by another reporter as to why he wasn’t fully denying such a "serious allegation."

"It's not that I'm not denying it, I’m going to refuse to speak to specific anecdotes that are in this book, I’m in no position to do that," Kirby explained. 

Kirby declined to say whether or not the Pentagon would release a transcript of the call in a similar fashion to the transcript of a phone call with the president of Ukraine that the Trump administration released in response to public outcry. 

"I'm certainly not going to sign us up to releasing transcripts of conversations that occurred before we took office," Kirby said. "I just can't do that."

Former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who led the Pentagon from the period after the 2020 election through Inauguration Day, said that he "did not and would not ever authorize" Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley to have "secret" calls with his Chinese counterpart, describing the allegations as a "disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination," and calling on him to resign "immediately."

Former President Trump has said that while he is not sure if these reports are accurate, the alleged actions would constitute treason if proven to be true. 

A reporter used the word "treason" when asking Kirby a question during Wednesday’s briefing, prompting a dismissive response and comment of "oh my goodness" from the Pentagon spokesperson.

A spokesperson for Milley defended allegations of "secret" calls with his Chinese counterpart, saying the conversations are "vital" to "reducing tensions" and "avoiding unintended consequences or conflict," maintaining that the calls were coordinated with high-level defense officials. 

"The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs regularly communicates with Chiefs of Defense across the world, including with China and Russia. These conversations remain vital to improving mutual understanding of U.S. national security interests, reducing tensions, providing clarity and avoiding unintended consequences or conflict," Milley spokesman Col. Dave Butler said in a statement Wednesday. 

Butler said that Milley's calls "with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability." 

President Biden defended Milley Wednesday saying he has "great confidence" in him. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki added that Biden "has worked side by side with Chairman Milley for almost eight months as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his "experience with him has been that he is a patriot."

 CNN and MSNBC had guests and analysts who defended Milley’s actions.

"I believe Milley would do that. Did he do it? That remains to be seen, but I know that general. And his role as chief of staff is that he would call a meeting, given the concerns of an unhinged president at that period of time," Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., said on CNN. 

CNN analyst Jaime Gangel argued in favor of Miley saying "Milley may be criticized for what some may think was overstepping his authority, but according to Woodward & Costa he felt he couldn’t trust Trump and that he needed to take any and all necessary precautions to prevent him from doing something dangerous."

"What [Milley] did was ensure the guardrails were in place. So I give him high marks for this based on what’s described in the book," CNN analyst Mark Hertling added.

MSNBC analyst Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey said, "It’s part of the deterrence of unwanted combat. I think he felt it important to not end up with a World War I start of a war through miscalculation on the part of the Chinese. So again, I think we ought to be fortunate we got this Princeton grad, tremendous combat officer, extremely intelligent, law-based trying to safeguard the transition to a duly-elected President Biden administration."

Milley has not yet publicly commented on the report. 

General Milley is holding a press conference right now and emphatically said that he saw nothing to indicate the Afghan military would fall and the Taliban would take over in 11 days:

I can just imagine that behind the scenes Biden was telling Milley he needed to do a press conference to take some heat off of himself because his speech two days ago only made things worse.

So here’s Milley, today, claiming that one of the three scenarios that intelligence gave him was the rapid fall of the Afghan military and takeover of the country by the Taliban. But he claims those estimates of how quickly the Taliban would take over ranged from weeks to months to years. That’s when he said:

“There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army or this government in 11 days.”

Can someone tell Milley that ’11 days’ constitutes ‘weeks’. I mean it’s almost two weeks and it’s definitely more than one week.

But seriously though, what he’s really saying is that he and the people he depends on for accurate intelligence are incompetent. I don’t really believe that’s the case, though, because those who predicted that the Taliban would take over in ‘weeks’ were just about right on point. I think the one who is truly incompetent here, other than Biden, is Milley. He’s essentially admitting it. And now there’s a crisis in Afghanistan where we can’t get our people out safely.

Milley also said in the presser that the Taliban isn’t interfering with us getting Americans out of Kabul:

"There was nothing, that I or anybody else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days," Milley said at a press briefing Wednesday.

Milley was responding to reports that intelligence had warned the security situation in Afghanistan would quickly deteriorate, with some suggesting President Joe Biden may have ignored those warnings to press ahead with his planned drawdown of forces.

But the general argued that while some intelligence did predict a collapse, none indicated the pace at which the collapse would escalate.

"I have previously said from this podium and in sworn testimony before Congress, that the intelligence clearly indicated multiple scenarios were possible: one of those was an outright Taliban takeover following a rapid collapse of the Afghan Security Forces and the government. Another was a civil war, and a third was a negotiated settlement," Milley said. "However, the timeframe of a rapid collapse,' that was widely estimates and ranged from weeks, months, and even years following our departure."

Milley's remarks came as he updated the press on the situation at the Kabul airport, saying that about 4,500 U.S. troops were currently on the ground securing the airport.

The general made clear that any U.S. citizen that desires to get out of Afghanistan will have an opportunity to do so, while also promising that Afghan allies that have helped with the 20-year effort would also be afforded an opportunity to escape the country.

Milley said that 5,000 people have already been evacuated, with the military currently operating 20 sorties with C-17 aircraft every 24 hours. The general said that the military will have the capability of increasing the pace of evacuations when the State Department "makes evacuees available."