9/10/20
Retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis, who served as President Donald Trump's defense secretary before resigning, has largely kept his thoughts on the commander-in-chief to himself, but Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's book "Rage" offers new insight into his views of the president and this administration.
On dealing with Trump, Mattis said: ""I was often trying to impose reason over impulse. And you see where I wasn't able to, because the tweets would get out there."
On the president's morality, Mattis reportedly said: "The president has no moral compass." (Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is said to have agreed, saying: "To him, a lie is not a lie. It's just what he thinks. He doesn't know the difference between the truth and a lie.")
In response to Trump's weakening of alliances, Mattis said: "What we're doing is we're actually showing how to destroy America. That's what we're showing them. How to isolate us from all of our allies. How to take us down. And it's working very well. We are declaring war on one another inside America. It's actually working against us right now."
On a president being tough and keeping the peace, Mattis said: "Not with the current occupant. He doesn't understand. He has no mental framework for these things. He hasn't read."
On Trump's go-it-alone strategy and dismissal of alliances, Mattis said: "It was indefensible. It was jingoism. It was a misguided form of nationalism. It was not patriotism."
On Trump's lasting impact on the country, Mattis said: "This degradation of the American experiment is real. This is tangible. Truth is no longer governing the White House statements.
On his decision to resign, Mattis said: "I was basically directed to do something that I thought went beyond stupid to felony stupid, strategically jeopardizing our place in the world and everything else, that's when I quit."