Pentagon-Trump clash breaks open over military and protests

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s Pentagon chief has shot down his idea of using active-duty troops to quell protests. But then Defense Secretary Mark Esper reversed course and kept the 82nd Airborne Division on standby after he visited the White House. It was an extraordinary clash Wednesday between the U.S. military and its commander in chief. Esper says active-duty troops should be deployed “only in the most urgent and dire of situations” and the U.S. is not there now. Trump has raised the possibility, though the White House has cooled on the idea as protests have calmed in the past two days.