Photo by US Army Sergeant Amber I. Smith
Politico: Inside Trump's First Pentagon Briefing
And what I saw there that foretold the coming rift between Mattis and the president.
Guy Snodgrass is former chief speechwriter for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. He is the author of Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon With Secretary Mattis, from which this article is adapted.
Long before real planning for it began, and long before the first news stories about it, those of us in the top levels of the Pentagon heard President Donald Trump demand the military parade he would eventually get. The bizarre request was one of the first signs I had of the enormous rift between my boss at the time, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and the president.
The clash came in the middle of Trump’s first Pentagon briefing on America’s military and diplomatic “laydown”—a term of art used to describe all of the locations around the world with U.S. forces and embassies—on July 20, 2017. Mattis, for whom I was working as chief speechwriter, had hoped the briefing would educate Trump on the United States’ longstanding commitment to the rest of the world. That is not at all what happened.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis knew that President Trump was not your conventional politician when he took the job, and that it was not going to be business as usual.
Related Posts :
TIME's 100 List Of The World's Most Influential People Of 2018 (Putin Did Not Make The List)
Iran Foreign Minister: Does Not Believe Iran Heading Into A War With Israel
Head of Iran’s Army: Israel Will 'Fade Away' In 25 Years
What If A Nuke Goes Off In Washington, D.C.?
Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- April 22, 2018