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Thread: President Trump says Defense Secretary Mattis is 'sort of a Democrat' and may leave

  1. #1

    President Trump says Defense Secretary Mattis is 'sort of a Democrat' and may leave

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ry/1640214002/

    WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump described his defense secretary as "sort of a Democrat" and said he may leave the administration after the midterm elections in an interview airing on "60 Minutes" Sunday.

    "He may leave," Trump said of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, according to an interview excerpt released by CBS News. "I mean, at some point, everybody leaves. Everybody. People leave. That's Washington."

    The New York Times reported last month that Trump may have soured on Mattis. In addition to thinking that Mattis is a Democrat at heart, The Times said, Trump doesn't like being unfavorably compared to Mattis.

    For his part, the defense secretary has said Trump acts as if he has the understanding of a fifth- or sixth-grader, according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's recently published book "Fear."

    Asked if he wants Mattis gone, Trump told 60 Minutes that he has a "very good relationship" with the defense secretary, whom he called a "good guy."

    But, Trump said, "it could be" that Mattis is leaving.

    "I think he's sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth,"
    Trump said.

    After his first year in office, Trump's administration already had the highest rate of turnover among White House staff in decades, according to the Brookings Institution.

    The latest high-profile figure to announce her departure was Nikki Haley, Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, who is stepping down at the end of the year.



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  3. #2
    Well, so, Trump’s sort of a Democrat, too. So there’s that.
    "And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat

    "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    Well, so, Trump’s sort of a Democrat, too. So there’s that.
    A different flavor of democrat, evidently.

    When the SecDef is less of a hawk than the President... well... that's probably not a good sign.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post

    When the SecDef is less of a hawk than the President... well... that's probably not a good sign.
    LOL, Mattis is one of the people who gets in the way of Trump pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and Syria etc.

    We will have to see if he actually leaves and who replaces him but this could be very good.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    LOL, Mattis is one of the people who gets in the way of Trump pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and Syria etc.
    That's just some fantasy bull$#@! that Trumpkins make up to make themselves feel better, like how Ivanka and Ronald McDonald forced Trump into cruise missile strikes on Syria.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    Well, so, Trump’s sort of a Democrat, too. So there’s that.
    Just cuz he sort of funded Obama's Chief of Staff's election campaign makes him of sort of democrat?
    Tough crowd here.



    Trump donated $50,000 to Rahm Emanuel’s 2010 Chicago mayoral campaign.
    https://variety.com/2017/biz/news/ar...ee-1201981545/

    That was soon after Rahm served as Obama White House Chief of Staff.

  8. #7
    Is this fantasy bull$#@!? If so please provide a truthful refutation.

    https://www.truthdig.com/articles/co...rican-empire/#

    Trump had entered the White House with a clear commitment to ending U.S. military interventions, based on a worldview in which fighting wars in the pursuit of military dominance has no place. In the last speech of his “victory tour” in December 2016, Trump vowed, “We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we knew nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.” Instead of investing in wars, he said, he would invest in rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure.

    In a meeting with his national security team in the summer of 2017, in which Secretary of Defense James Mattis recommended new military measures against Islamic State affiliates in North Africa, Trump expressed his frustration with the unending wars. “You guys want me to send troops everywhere,” Trump said, according to a Washington Post report. “What’s the justification?”

    Mattis replied, “Sir, we’re doing it to prevent a bomb from going off in Times Square,” to which Trump angrily retorted that the same argument could be made about virtually any country on the planet.
    ...
    Mattis used the standard Bush and Obama administration rhetoric of globalism, according to the meeting notes provided to Woodward. He asserted that the “rules-based, international democratic order”—the term used to describe the global structure of U.S. military and military power—had brought security and prosperity. Tillerson, ignoring decades of U.S. destabilizing wars in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, chimed in, saying, “This is what has kept the peace for 70 years.”

    Trump said nothing, according to Woodward’s account, but simply shook his head in disagreement. He eventually steered the discussion to an issue that was particularly irritating to him: U.S. military and economic relations with South Korea. “We spend $3.5 billion a year to have troops in South Korea,” Trump complained. “I don’t know why they’re there. … Let’s bring them all home!”
    ...
    Mattis portrayed the troop presence in South Korea as a great security bargain. “Forward-positioned troops provide the least costly means of achieving our security objectives,” he said, “and withdrawal would lead our allies to lose all confidence in us.” The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, argued that South Korea was reimbursing the United States $800 million a year out of the total cost of $2 billion, thus subsidizing the United States for something it would do in its own interests anyway.

    But such arguments made no impression on Trump, who saw no value in having troops abroad at a time when the United States itself was crumbling. “We have [spent] $7 trillion in the Middle East,” Trump said at the end of the meeting. “We can’t even muster $1 trillion for domestic infrastructure.”

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    LOL, Mattis is one of the people who gets in the way of Trump pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and Syria etc.

    We will have to see if he actually leaves and who replaces him but this could be very good.

    I thought Bolton and Pompoeo were getting in the way of ending foreign interventions and starting new tensions with Iran/Syria?


    This is amazing 5-D chess when so many best people MAGA has surroundied him self with keep getting im his way.

    Looking at all the people who have left or rumored to be leaving soon, perhaps everyone in the best crowd is in his way... other than widely respected senior advisors and anti-nepotism champions Kushner and Ivanka.



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  11. #9
    Mattis' irrational hatred of Iran is highly amusing. It's like hating the guy who slept with your wife when he didn't know that she was a married woman.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by milgram View Post
    Is this fantasy bull$#@!? If so please provide a truthful refutation.

    https://www.truthdig.com/articles/co...rican-empire/#
    Yeah, Trump was totally against any military actions.


  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    LOL, Mattis is one of the people who gets in the way of Trump pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and Syria etc.

    We will have to see if he actually leaves and who replaces him but this could be very good.
    Marianas trench IQ

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Yeah, Trump was totally against any military actions.

    Being non-interventionist != being totally against any military actions ever. Ron Paul supported going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Bombing daesh, a terrorist regime with no legitimacy, is no different. And note I'm not a Trump fan. The truth is that Obama was leaving daesh alone and going after Assad. Horrible, horrible strategy if you are actually against Islamic terrorism.
    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

  15. #13
    It displeases the MAGA for inner circle members to be crypto-democrats.
    1. Don't lie.
    2. Don't cheat.
    3. Don't steal.
    4. Don't kill.
    5. Don't commit adultery.
    6. Don't covet what your neighbor has, especially his wife.
    7. Honor your father and mother.
    8. Remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy.
    9. Don’t use your Higher Power's name in vain, or anyone else's.
    10. Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

    "For the love of money is the root of all evil..." -- I Timothy 6:10, KJV

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    When the SecDef is less of a hawk than the President... well... that's probably not a good sign.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Influenza View Post
    Marianas trench IQ
    And still higher than yours even if you are right.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  18. #16
    I am more interested to here opinions on what " sort of a democrat " means . When I was a kid that could mean they could not read well and belonged to the KKK , participated in incest etc These days it is probably more modern , support killing babies , welfare etc
    Do something Danke



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by oyarde View Post
    I am more interested to here opinions on what " sort of a democrat " means . When I was a kid that could mean they could not read well and belonged to the KKK , participated in incest etc These days it is probably more modern , support killing babies , welfare etc
    He has refused to implement Trump's Tranny ban in the military for one thing.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    He has refused to implement Trump's Tranny ban in the military for one thing.
    A Marine General refusing a tranny ban ? Yep , a future dem primary candidate for president with an Anti american greatness plan.
    Do something Danke

  22. #19

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by milgram View Post
    Is this fantasy bull$#@!? If so please provide a truthful refutation.

    https://www.truthdig.com/articles/co...rican-empire/#

    Here's where the fantasy comes in:

    Do you believe everything else that was alleged in Bob Woodward's book, or just this one thing?
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by milgram View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by article
    Trump had entered the White House with a clear commitment to ending U.S. military interventions, based on a worldview in which fighting wars in the pursuit of military dominance has no place.
    Is this fantasy bull$#@!? If so please provide a truthful refutation.


    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    That's just some fantasy bull$#@! that Trumpkins make up to make themselves feel better, like how Ivanka and Ronald McDonald forced Trump into cruise missile strikes on Syria.

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post

    Nice selfie.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  26. #23

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    Here's where the fantasy comes in:

    Do you believe everything else that was alleged in Bob Woodward's book, or just this one thing?
    Trying to weasel out of it now? I haven't read Bob Woodward's book. I have read this article. Those exchanges do not conflict with anything else I have seen.
    It could be accurate or it could be bull$#@!, but what I believe is irrelevant to the facts. Go ahead and provide those facts. If that part of the book is inaccurate, I want to know about it. You made the claim that Trump was more of a hawk than Mattis.
    Last edited by milgram; 10-16-2018 at 10:45 AM.



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by milgram View Post
    Trying to weasel out of it now? I haven't read Bob Woodward's book. I have read this article. Those exchanges do not conflict with anything else I have seen.
    It could be accurate or it could be bull$#@!, but what I believe is irrelevant to the facts. Go ahead and provide those facts. If that part of the book is inaccurate, I want to know about it. You made the claim that Trump was more of a hawk than Mattis.
    It was obvious to me that Trump was a hawk with his rhetoric against Iran in the primaries & then canceling the Iran Deal- and now calling Iran the biggest terrorist threat in the ME.
    There is no spoon.

  30. #26
    Irregardless of whether it's a RED, BLUE or PURPLE wave,
    D.Trump is going to fire 5 d.c people in a bigly way in NOV!

  31. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by milgram View Post
    Trying to weasel out of it now? I haven't read Bob Woodward's book. I have read this article. Those exchanges do not conflict with anything else I have seen.
    It could be accurate or it could be bull$#@!, but what I believe is irrelevant to the facts. Go ahead and provide those facts. If that part of the book is inaccurate, I want to know about it. You made the claim that Trump was more of a hawk than Mattis.
    What you believe is actually quite relevant. There are other anonymously sourced things in that same book which portray Trump as more of a hawk than Mattis. Which will you choose to believe?


    Trump talking about invading Venezuela (which he suggested in public)?

    Donald Trump repeatedly raised the possibility of invading Venezuela in talks with his top aides at the White House, according to a new report.Trump brought up the subject of an invasion in public in August last year, saying: “We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if necessary.” But the president’s musings about the possibility of a US invasion were more extensive and persistent than that public declaration, according to the Associated Press.

    The previous day Trump reportedly took his top officials by surprise in an Oval Office meeting, asking why the US could not intervene to remove the government of Nicolás Maduro on the grounds that Venezuela’s political and economic unraveling represented a threat to the region.

    Quoting an unnamed senior administration official, the AP report said the suggestion stunned those present at the meeting, which included the then national security adviser, HR McMaster, and secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. Both have since left the administration.

    The administration officials are said to have taken turns in trying to talk him out of the idea, pointing out that any such military action would alienate Latin American allies who had supported the US policy of punitive sanctions on the Maduro regime.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...nezuela-report



    Trump talking about assassinating Assad?

    Woodward also claims that when Trump called up Mattis and suggested the United States “$#@!ing kill” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against civilians in 2017, Mattis played along but then hung up the phone and told an aide, “We’re not going to do any of that,” and instead drew up plans for more limited air strikes that Trump ultimately authorized.


    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/mattis-woodward-trump/569350/


    Or other anonymously sourced things:

    Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump quashed Defense Secretary James Mattis' suggestion to obtain congressional authorization ahead of last week's strikes in Syria, military and administration officials told The New York Times.

    According to the Times report, the officials said Trump's choice to override Mattis' guidance to get congressional approval for the strikes was because he wanted his tweets to be supported by action, despite warnings that not erring on the side of caution could precipitate a larger dispute with Russia.
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/polit...ike/index.html


    Then there are provable things said in public like about the Iran deal:

    Defense Secretary James Mattis on Thursday praised certain parts of the Iran nuclear deal, as President Trump repeatedly bashed the multination agreement this week and and threatened to pull the United States out of it.

    ...

    Mattis has said in the past that the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, isn’t perfect, but that staying in it would be in America's national security interest.
    https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3...ers-withdrawal
    Last edited by TheCount; 10-16-2018 at 05:28 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    What you believe is actually quite relevant. There are other anonymously sourced things in that same book which portray Trump as more of a hawk than Mattis. Which will you choose to believe?
    Trump could more of a hawk than Mattis on some issues. It sounds like he is. I have never said otherwise.

    The specific issue is his position on troop withdrawl. You called it fantasy bull$#@!. Your position contradicts available reporting so I would like to hear why you are so sure of yourself. Revealingly you want to talk about everything else. To refresh your memory:

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    LOL, Mattis is one of the people who gets in the way of Trump pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and Syria etc.
    That's just some fantasy bull$#@! that Trumpkins make up to make themselves feel better, like how Ivanka and Ronald McDonald forced Trump into cruise missile strikes on Syria.
    Since I have asked for substantiation multiples times to no avail, it appears that you make glib comments but cannot back them up.

  33. #29
    Not sure if Trump is actually 100% for 'troop withdrawal' from Syria/Afghanistan. He has made statement alluding to this when it comes to Syria. In Afghanistan, there are negotiations that may result in some troop pullout: Afghan Taliban officials: 'US agrees to discuss troops pullout' but that is a Taliban statement, not a Trump statement.

    Facts on the ground in Syria say otherwise: US troops will be in Syria for generations since Iran will never leave because if they do; a genocide of Christians and Shias will occur, Iran being Shia will not allow that to happen. Iran is also very protective of their Shia shrines in both Iraq and Syria. American and israeli supported Sunni terrorists want a genocide of Shias and Christians as well as the destruction of churches and Shia shrines. The US/israel/west with their non-recognition of the legitimate Syrian government headed by Bashar Assad is indirectly supporting the genocide of Christians in Syria.
    Last edited by homahr; 10-17-2018 at 11:00 AM.

  34. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by homahr View Post
    Not sure if Trump is actually 100% for 'troop withdrawal' from Syria/Afghanistan. He has made statement alluding to this when it comes to Syria. In Afghanistan, there are negotiations that may result in some troop pullout: Afghan Taliban officials: 'US agrees to discuss troops pullout' but that is a Taliban statement, not a Trump statement.

    Facts on the ground in Syria say otherwise: US troops will be in Syria for generations since Iran will never leave because if they do; a genocide of Christians and Shias will occur, Iran being Shia will not allow that to happen. Iran is also very protective of their Shia shrines in both Iraq and Syria. American and israeli supported Sunni terrorists want a genocide of Shias and Christians as well as the destruction of churches and Shia shrines. The US/israel/west with their non-recognition of the legitimate Syrian government headed by Bashar Assad is indirectly supporting the genocide of Christians in Syria.
    April 4, 2018

    WASHINGTON — President Trump has instructed his military commanders to quickly wrap up the American military operation in Syria so that he can bring troops home within a few months, senior administration officials said on Wednesday. He dropped his insistence on an immediate withdrawal, they said, after commanders told him they needed time to complete their mission.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/w...ia-troops.html




    President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to prepare options for drawing down American troops in South Korea
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/w...uth-korea.html


    Trump was reportedly surprised by the number of US troops stationed in Germany and expressed interest in pulling some of them out
    https://www.businessinsider.com/us-t...s-study-2018-6
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

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