U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday flatly dismissed reports suggesting he may be leaving President Donald Trump\u2019s administration in the coming months, saying flatly: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t take it seriously at all.\u201d \u201cHow many times have we been through this, now, just since I\u2019ve been here? It will die down soon, and the people who started the rumor will be allowed to write the next rumor, too,\u201d Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon. \u201cJust the way the town is,\u201d he added. \u201cKeep a sense of humor about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The remarks were the most direct by Mattis to date about intensifying rumors about his future as Trump approaches the half-way mark of his four-year term amid speculation about changes to his cabinet after upcoming November mid-term elections. Mattis has become a focus in media stories in recent weeks about the Trump administration, particularly after the release of a book this month by Watergate reporter Bob Woodward that portrayed Mattis privately disparaging Trump to associates.<\/p>\n
Mattis strongly denied making any such remarks. Trump on Sept. 5 said the defense chief would remain in his job, adding: \u201cHe\u2019ll stay right there. We\u2019re very happy with him. We\u2019re having a lot of victories.\u201d But a New York Times report on Sept. 15 said Trump had \u201csoured on his defense secretary, weary of unfavorable comparisons to Mattis as the adult in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also noted this year\u2019s arrival in the White House of Mira Ricardel, who now has the powerful post of deputy national security adviser and who current and former officials tell Reuters is believed to dislike Mattis. Western officials privately extol Mattis, whose standing among NATO allies has risen as they become increasingly bewildered by Trump\u2019s policies on trade and Iran and disoriented by his outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
Mattis has a dim view of journalism about inside-the-beltway politics in Washington, using the word \u201cfiction\u201d to describe Woodward\u2019s book and similar reporting about closed-door conversations among U.S. national security leaders. Asked about the recent reports speculating about his departure, Mattis said: \u201cIt\u2019s like most of those kinds of things in this town. Somebody cooks up a headline. They then call to a normally chatty class of people. They find a couple of other things to put in. They add the rumors\u2026 Next thing you know, you\u2019ve got a story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Mattis is not political by nature, and previously made no secret of the fact that he was not looking to become secretary of defense \u2013 or even return to Washington when Trump was elected. The retired Marine general had stepped down from the military in 2013 and taken a job at Stanford University. He told his Senate confirmation hearing last year he was \u201cenjoying a full life west of the Rockies\u201d when the call came about the position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday flatly dismissed reports suggesting he may be leaving President Donald Trump\u2019s administration in the coming months, saying flatly: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t take it seriously at all.\u201d \u201cHow many times have we been through this, now, just since I\u2019ve been here? It will die down soon, and the people who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42475,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42473\/revisions\/42475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}