Mattis Had a Mixed Record
An honorable public servant leaves behind a messy legacy.
By Derek Chollet | December 21, 2018, 3:45 PM
In hindsight, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis was doomed from the beginning. As he uncomfortably watched President Donald Trump use the Pentagon’s “Hall of Heroes†as the backdrop for signing a travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries in the administration’s first week—a policy Mattis had previously opposed publicly—this obviously was not going to end well.
Despite Mattis’s attempts to establish a warm relationship with Trump, he never really fit in. A president who thinks in stereotypes thought he was getting a “Mad Dog†Marine out of Full Metal Jacket and had little patience for Mattis’s cool analysis and sober thinking. Trump likely also grew tired of all the positive press Mattis attracted, almost always at his own expense.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/mattis-was-a-trump-enabler/
