If that's so, then why / how was he allowed to give a speech "to the nation"???
Him saying that he thought they were going out to talk to some of the troops is an outright lie.
Remember, POTUS said right at the end of his speech…
"Now I'm going to visit a very special place".
He didn't say, "Now I'm going to talk to my troops", or anything like that.
I'm very sure that Esper knew.
When I have more time I'm going to re-watch McEnany's press briefings and see if she said something that will give us more clues. But I'm sure that Esper knew they were going to visit the church. And if he didn't want to go to the church then why did he stand there in front of it with POTUS for a picture???
Not much.
Someone showed a screenshot of views, only 1k, POTUS has 20 times more views on a video.