Amid speculation that he might soon be replaced, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said US President Donald Trump told him he supports the retired general “100 percent.”
The assertion comes just days after Trump mused on national television about Mattis leaving his post.
Mattis said Trump gave him this assurance during a telephone call yesterday while Mattis was flying from Washington to Ho Chi Minh City. A few hours earlier, Mattis told reporters traveling with him that he and Trump had never discussed the possibility of him leaving the Pentagon job.
Photo: AFP
Mattis initially was responding to reporters’ questions about Trump’s comments on CBS’ 60 Minutes on Sunday that Mattis “may leave” his administration and that he thinks the retired US Marine Corps general is “sort of a Democrat.”
Asked what he made of Trump’s comments, in which the president also said he likes Mattis and that eventually all appointees move on, Mattis said, “Nothing at all,” adding: “We have never talked about me leaving.” Later, Mattis approached reporters traveling with him to say he had just spoken to Trump.
He said he called the president aboard Air Force One to discuss damage to military bases caused by Hurricane Michael.
During that conversation, Trump asked Mattis whether he had seen the 60 Minutes interview. Mattis said he had not. Trump then expressed his full support for Mattis and suggested Mattis let the press know this.
By telling 60 Minutes that he suspected Mattis is “sort of a Democrat,” Trump seemed to suggest that he thinks Mattis is too moderate in his politics, although he did not say so directly or cite any area of disagreement with Mattis.
Whereas Trump has made a hardline policy on immigration a centerpiece of his agenda, Mattis has publicly cited the valuable contributions that non-citizen members of the military have made over the years.
Mattis also is a staunch supporter of NATO, whereas Trump has questioned its value to the US.
Mattis told reporters he has sought to carry out and reinforce Trump’s military and national security policies without regard to partisanship.
Those policies are now “reaping significant bipartisan support,” he said.
Asked directly whether he is a Democrat, Mattis said: “We’re all built on our formative experiences. When I was 18 I joined the Marine Corps, and in the US military we are proudly apolitical.”
Asked if that meant he was not a registered member of either major political party, he said: “I’ve never registered for any political party.”
Presidents in recent decades have sometimes picked a member of the opposite party to head the Pentagon.
Then-president Bill Clinton’s second-term defense secretary was William Cohen, a prominent Republican senator, and Barack Obama’s first Pentagon chief was Robert Gates, a Republican who had served as CIA director and defense secretary in Republican administrations.
The post of defense secretary is typically the least political in a president’s Cabinet. That is because of the non-political tradition of the military and long-standing bipartisan support for US military alliances such as NATO.
Mattis flew to Vietnam for his second visit this year. He told reporters the violent history between the two countries is a thing of the past.
“The legacy of the war has turned into actually a basis for defense cooperation,” he said.
An example of this is a US-funded US$390 million project to clean up war-era chemical contamination of the ground at an air base near Ho Chi Minh City.
Mattis planned to visit the base at Bien Hoa today to see the area firsthand.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS