Retired Secretary of Defence James Mattis, who left his post in January, elaborates on his disagreements with US President Donald Trump in his upcoming book “Call Sign Chaos”, The Guardian reported on Wednesday. The Defence Secretary published an essay in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Duty, Democracy and the Threat of Tribalism,” which contains excerpts from the upcoming book.
According to The Guardian, Mattis does not criticize his former boss directly, but focuses primarily on how his career in the Marines culminated in the Defence Secretary appointment, and barely touches on his tenure at the Pentagon.
In the book, Mattis recalls the surprise he felt when he was contacted by Mike Pence in November 2016 and offered the job of Secretary of Defenсe. Mattis met with the president-elect at Trump’s New Jersey golf club, and reportedly had an “amiable” discussion. But it was immediately clear the two men did not see eye to eye on two key issues: NATO and the use of torture.
“I figured that my strong support of NATO and my dismissal of the use of torture on prisoners would have the president-elect looking for another candidate,” Mattis writes.
Surprisingly, not only was Mattis picked as defenсe secretary, he influenced Trump’s view, to a certain extent, according to The Guardian. In 2016, Trump told The New York Times that Mattis offered alternatives to interrogation and the president had acknowledged he was “impressed by it.”
“[Mattis] said: ‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’ And I was very impressed by that answer,” Trump said at the time.
Over time, however, the disagreements grew, particularly regarding NATO, which Mattis strongly supported and which Trump, acting on advice from various cabinet members, considered “obsolete.” Once the Defenсe Secretary’s strategic advice stopped “resonating” with the president, Mattis made the move to depart.
“When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in Defenсe of the constitution,” he writes in the book.
Mattis was US Defenсe Secretary for 712 days, resigning on 1 January 2019. He is succeeded by Mark Esper, the current Secretary of Defenсe. Call Sign Chaos will be published next week.