James Mattis Hit the Trump Administration With Unexpected News But Trump Hits Back
By Townhall. President Trump announced Thursday afternoon Secretary of Defense James Mattis will be leaving his position at the beginning of next year.
General Jim Mattis will be retiring, with distinction, at the end of February, after having served my Administration as Secretary of Defense for the past two years. During Jim’s tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2018
….equipment. General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations. A new Secretary of Defense will be named shortly. I greatly thank Jim for his service!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2018
NEW: Mattis's resignation letter, via @Elizabeth_McLau: "Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position." pic.twitter.com/u2cPrgQQKV
— Conor Finnegan (@cjf39) December 20, 2018
Mattis: "My views on treating allies with respect & also being clear-eyed about both malign actors & strategic competitors are strongly held & informed over four decades of immersion in these issues." (This is brutal.)
— David M. Drucker (@DavidMDrucker) December 20, 2018
The move comes less than 24-hours after President Trump announced U.S. troops will be leaving Syria, a decision Mattis, along with a number of other military leaders, strongly disagrees with.
Trump gave military 30 days to pull out. Pentagon chiefs fear the SDF, who fought with US vs ISIS and Kurdish forces to be slaughtered.
As one senior US defense official put it to me, "no one will ever work or fight with us in the Middle East again." https://t.co/9CoGjpAPHR— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) December 20, 2018
(Read more from “James Mattis Just Hit the Trump Administration With Unexpected News” HERE)
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In Characteristic Fashion, Trump Hits Back After Mattis’ Resignation
By Quint Forgey. President Donald Trump claimed Saturday he gave outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis “a second chance” after the retired Marine general was ousted from military leadership under the Obama administration.
“When President Obama ingloriously fired Jim Mattis, I gave him a second chance. Some thought I shouldn’t, I thought I should,” Trump tweeted Saturday evening.
Former President Barack Obama fired Mattis as head of U.S. Central Command in 2013 in large part because of Mattis’ increasingly hawkish posture toward Iran.
. . .Trump wrote that he made sure Mattis was better equipped and more empowered in his role leading the Pentagon since January 2017.
“Interesting relationship-but I also gave all of the resources that he never really had. Allies are very important-but not when they take advantage of U.S.,” Trump tweeted. (Read more about how Trump reacted to Mattis’ unexpected news HERE)
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US Defense Secretary James Mattis left a stark message for his successor in his resignation letter: Wake up and smell the threat
By Business Insider. US Defense Secretary James Mattis announced his resignation from the Trump administration on Thursday, setting in motion the end of what has been a tumultuous tenure working with President Donald Trump.
In his resignation letter, Mattis told Trump, without saying his name, that the president has a “right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned” with his own. . .
But it was the outgoing defense secretary’s warning about the shifting nature of great-power relations he hopes his successor will study closely. . .
“I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly at odds with our own,” Mattis wrote in his resignation letter.
“It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model — gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions — to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbours, America and our allies.” (Read more from “US Defense Secretary James Mattis left a stark message for his successor in his resignation letter: Wake up and smell the threat” HERE)
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