After Trump lost his bid for reelection in November 2020, he and his allies took unprecedented actions in an attempt to overturn the results, presaging the violent siege of the United States Capitol. According to "I Alone Can Fix It", a July 2021 book by "Washington Post" reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, Milley became concerned Trump was preparing to stage a coup, and held informal discussions with his deputies about possible ways to thwart it, telling associates, "They may try, but they're not going to fucking succeed. You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns." The book also quoted Milley saying "this is a Reichstag moment," comparing Trump's attempts to overturn the election to the event used to cement Nazi rule in Germany and referring to Trump's false statements about electoral fraud as "the gospel of the Führer." Milley reportedly told police and military officials preparing to secure Joe Biden's presidential inauguration, "Everyone in this room, whether you’re a cop, whether you’re a soldier, we’re going to stop these guys to make sure we have a peaceful transfer of power. We’re going to put a ring of steel around this city and the Nazis aren’t getting in." Trump later rebuked media reports that Milley feared he would plot a coup, calling the general "one of the last people I would want to do [a coup] with" and stating that he had only made Milley JCS chair to go against his former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and presidential predecessor Barack Obama, both of whom Trump disliked. Trump also wrongly claimed that Obama had fired Milley (Obama actually fired Mattis) as CENTCOM commander.