Last year, during one particularly frenetic stretch in Donald Trump’s presidency, a top Republican senator said there were three men guarding the country from chaos …
WASHINGTON — Last year, during one particularly frenetic stretch in Donald Trump’s presidency, a top Republican senator said there were three men guarding the country from chaos: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, White House chief of staff John Kelly and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Within weeks, not one will be left in the administration.
Mattis will be the last to go, and his abrupt resignation Thursday marks the end of the ‘contain and control’ phase of Trump’s administration — one where generals, business leaders and establishment Republicans struggled to guide the president and curb his most disruptive impulses. They were branded in Washington as the « troika of sanity, » the « axis of adults » and the « committee to save America. »
But as Trump careens toward his third year in office, their efforts are in tatters and most are out of a job.
The early consequences of the new era were already apparent at year’s end, with Trump on the verge of a government shutdown over the advice of GOP leaders and ordering the withdrawal of U. S. troops from Syria over Mattis’ objections. A similar pull-back in Afghanistan appeared to be in the works. The financial markets, spooked by uncertainty from a nearly yearlong trade war, tanked.
« We are headed toward a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances & empower our adversaries, » Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted after Mattis’ resignation.
The shrinking circle around Trump is now increasingly dominated by a small cadre of longtime Trump loyalists and family members, ex-Fox News talent, and former GOP lawmakers who were backbenchers on Capitol Hill before being elevated by the president.
