The president and the defense chief have found themselves at odds over NATO policy, whether to resume large-scale military exercises with South Korea and…
The president and the defense chief have found themselves at odds over NATO policy, whether to resume large-scale military exercises with South Korea and whether the president’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal has proved effective.
WASHINGTON — When their relationship was fresh and new, and President Donald Trump still called his defense secretary “Mad Dog” — a nickname Jim Mattis detests — the wiry retired Marine general often took a dinner break to eat burgers with his boss in the White House residence.
Mattis brought briefing folders with him, aides said, to help explain the military’s shared “ready to fight tonight” strategy with South Korea, and why the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has long been viewed as central to protecting the United States. Using his folksy manner, Mattis talked the president out of ordering torture against terrorism detainees and persuaded him to send thousands more U. S. troops to Afghanistan — all without igniting the public Twitter castigations that have plagued other national-security officials.
The burger dinners have stopped. Interviews with more than a dozen White House, congressional and current and former Defense Department officials during the past six weeks paint a portrait of a president who has soured on his defense secretary, weary of unfavorable comparisons to Mattis as the adult in the room, and increasingly concerned that he is a Democrat at heart.
Nearly all the officials and confidants of Mattis spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal tensions — in some cases, out of fear of losing their jobs.
In the second year of his presidency, Trump has largely tuned out his national-security aides as he feels more confident as commander in chief, the officials said. Facing what is likely to be a heated re-election fight once the 2018 midterms are over, aides said Trump was pondering whether he wanted someone running the Pentagon who would be more vocally supportive than Mattis, who is vehemently protective of the U. S. military against perceptions it could be used for political purposes.
Trump administration officials said Mattis had balked at a number of Trump’s requests. That included initially slow-walking the president’s order to ban transgender troops from the military and refusing a demand to stop relatives from accompanying troops deploying to South Korea. The Pentagon worried that doing so could have been seen by North Korea as a precursor to war.
In the past four months, the president and the defense chief have found themselves at odds over NATO policy, whether to resume large-scale military exercises with South Korea and, privately, whether Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal has proved effective.
The arrival at the White House this year of Mira Ricardel, a deputy national-security adviser with a history of bad blood with Mattis, has coincided with new assertions from the West Wing that the defense secretary may be asked to leave after the midterms.
