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In Tough Letter, Mattis Resigns as Secretary of Defense
Late Thursday, Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced that he will leave the Trump administration in February. In his resignation letter, Mattis told the President, “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.”
Trump offered kind words on Twitter for the retiring cabinet member. “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,” Trump tweeted. “During Jim’s tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting 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!”
The text of the resignation letter is included below:
Ok this is very bad news. The Adults in the Room seem to be leaving. Time to get concerned.
Let there be madness.
Let there be butchery.
Let there be slaughter.
On top of all this, the Dow is probably going to plunge 1000 points tomorrow.
Nothing like a little overreaction to make me want to find some good in this.
This is most disconcerting. Anyone else and I would expect to see them on CNN by noon tomorrow. At least PDJT didn’t come out with a terrible tweet…yet. Whoever is the replacement needs to be very strong.
Terrible day to have no internet at work.
Mattis isn’t indispensable; no one is. Trump’s next appointment for SecDef may well be excellent.
But whens someone of Mattis’s stature and experience says “I’m afraid the president and I can no longer effectively work together,” that’s a really bad thing.
Best quotes from Mattis.
But not unprecedented. The best I can say about this is I believe that Mattis is enough of a patriot where he would not have resigned if he felt Trump’s mindset posed a serious threat to the nation. But it’s still bad mojo.
Notice the platitudes that were left out:
It’s been a pleasure to serve with you…
I support your leadership…
The country is left in good hands….
Most disconcerting. The announcement of withdrawing from the Syrian campaign seemed to come as a surprise to many people and there is concern that doing so leaves the Kurds out on a limb without adequate support. Then there is the matter of Saudi Arabia and whether Mattis agreed with the way the president handled the response to the Khashoggi murder appropriately or adequately. Mattis is an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful man who chooses his words carefully. He is not one to shoot from the hip. His boss on the other hand.
The apparent inability for Congress to deliver the Great Wall of Trump is also a troubling development for Trump. The House holds the purse strings on spending and Trump is likely to be challenged on a great deal in the next two years. He may try to curry favor with the Dems to pump in billions into infrastructure spending. Hopefully, a lot of that can be rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate.
If Trump’s popularity amongst his base and those more pragmatic Republicans who have supported him and others in the Senate erodes, then keep your eyes in the coming months on what Nikki Haley does.
Some folks here won’t appreciate this, but I thought it was funny:
https://archive.org/details/TimmMcCoyItsBeginingToLookALotLikeNixon
I wanted Mattis there because I wanted someone who could fight for the individual soldier, sailor, Marine and airman, to fight for the budget and repair a lot of the damage done over the last 17 years. The social engineering continues apace and it seems the mission in the Middle East is ever expanding. It’s disappointing all the way around.
This is Mattis.
The elements that allow Bernie bros to advance their imbecile agenda, right VirusCop?
Better Mattis stays and Trump goes.
I don’t know, I’m not a Bernie bro.
The elements that prove Trump is a master of infinite-dimensional chess, right Percival?
There was a rumor a few weeks back that Trump is considering dropping Pence from the 2020 ticket, which wouldn’t surprise me at all given the turnover rate in this administration. If that actually happens, might Pence decide to challenge Trump in the primaries?
…unless he thought that not resigning wouldn’t have helped mitigate the threat.
Nah. The President is a jackass.
I don’t remember the particular designation of political nonsense to which you ascribe. Might as well just sweep them all where they belong: the “slow learner” category.
Oh, my Lord! How much harder can a person pray?!
Dropping Pence would be a fatal error. Depending on what happens with the economy and internationally (Ukraine, Iran, Syria, China and Taiwan) in the next year and whether the Dems move forward on impeachment even if the Senate won’t remove Trump from office (a la Clinton), Trump’s favorability could plummet opening the way for a successful primary challenge. But it won’t be Kasich or Flake. It will be someone who actually behaves more like a conservative and has a following.
It’s Mattis on top of the Kelly resignation that’s disconcerting, because the one thing Trump did seem to be willing to do in his first two years in office was listen to the military people he hired, which provided a certain level of discipline and stability, even among the day-to-day turmoil. If he’s suddenly going to take the Obama credo to heart — “I’m a better Chief of Staff than my Chief of Staff/I’m a better Secretary of Defense than my Secretary of Defense” — and start determining policy based on his own gut feelings and impulses of the moment, he’s going to get himself into trouble in a hurry, in areas where all but the hardest of the hard-core base isn’t going to be willing to go to the mat for him.
Honestly, it was only Jim Mattis that kept me from staring at the ceiling at night with my eyes popped open per having a kid in uniform. I find this to be extremely disheartening news.
Shrug.
The turning of the page continues.
It is a good day when a respected, powerful senior government official tenders his resignation rather than subverting the agenda on which President Trump was elected. Mattis laid out the extent of his agreement with the President and clearly has gotten to the limit of what he can accomplish within mutually agreed goals.
Do I dare head for MSNBC to see the same people who warned us against the “rise of the Generals” in the Administration lamenting the “very worrisome” loss of Mattis and Kelly?
That was addressed a little while ago on the Chuck and Nancy Show, a joint announcement. Hagiography, actually. Could have served as one of the “Veneration” posts for this month’s Group Writing.
Don’t forget Gen. Dunford’s departure as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; he, Kelly and Mattis were classmates, who (presumably) share a particular approach to problems set before them…Wise and gentlemanly decisions to move on. Fair winds and following seas, sirs.
I read the Mattis letter as stating his views are not aligned with the President on China, Russia, the treatment of our allies, and the value of an international order. That’s quite a lot.
I’m more inclined to get out of Syria than stay but regret losing Mattis over the decision.
The President is going to find it increasingly hard to staff his administration.
@tommeyer, your comment best sums up the way I feel, as I, like so many of us, felt he was the pillar of strength, along with the incredible Nikki Haley, most strongly supporting his entire administration, complemented by his fellow General of the Marine Corps, John Kelly. With this announcement coming so soon after Kelly’s departure, and practically within hours of the sudden move with regard to Syria, which will almost certainly result in the slaughter of the Kurds, some of the bravest people on Earth, I am more than just a little deeply concerned. I cannot imagine what parents of those serving in the many hot spots around the world, like, apparently, @loislane, must be feeling right now. At the risk of overreaching, I have to say that General Mattis is one of the finest military minds this Nation has ever produced, and this is a serious loss of acutely needed intellectual power in the military field. Too many stumbles, including the “dithering”, for want of a better word, on whether he is going to cave to the execrable Schumer and Pelosi on funding for the wall and the mixed signals following the Kashoggi murder, happening in too short a time span to not feel a little rumbling under one’s feet.
By the way, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and the best of all Happy New Year’s to one and all! Sincerely, Jim.