JAMES MATTIS/MILITARY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Secretary of Defense James Mattis submitted his resignation on Thursday [12-20-18]. It was an honorable thing to do. But it wasn’t much of a choice. He did exactly what military tradition demands when one can’t ethically or morally support the boss anymore. It’s a wonder, quite frankly, that it took this long. It’s arguably one of the worst kept secrets in town that Mattis has not been aligned with Trump on many policy issues. He opposed the President’s decision to ban transgender troops from service. He slow-rolled Trump’s ridiculous desire for a grand military parade. According to Bob Woodward, Mattis had to personally intervene to convince the President not to remove American troops from the Korean peninsula. Mattis failed to convince Trump to stay in the Iran deal. He is rumored not to have supported moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. He went out of his way to shore up NATO allies after Trump bludgeoned them over defense spending. And he was in favor of a defense strategy that went straight at Russia and China, two countries Trump hates to criticize.”
–John Kirby, “Mattis did the honorable thing,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, December 20, 2018 8:01 am