Trump fires Defense Secretary Mark Esper, markets on watch for civil unrest

In a pair of tweets Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump said he fired his Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

We have seen a series of departures from the Pentagon of late.

Esper’s tenure as top Pentagon official followed the resignations of Trump’s first Secretary of Defense James Mattis and then-acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan.

''Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service,'' Trump tweeted, followed up by:

Market implications

The news is unlikely to be risk-friendly at the margin considering the Esper was against sending in the military to deal with rioting.

There is a deeply divided United States over the contested outcome of the US elections and markets are on guard for potential rioting.