More than a dozen White House officials and confidants of the current secretary of defense said that President Trump is contemplating replacing Jim Mattis with a more vocal Trump supporter after the 2018 midterm elections, according to a report.
The sources told the New York Times that the relationship between Trump and Mattis, once strong, has tarnished over time.
Mattis is not one to publicly declare his loyalty for Trump, and likes to keep the Pentagon free from too much political influence and the idea that the U.S. military could be used for political purposes.
The relationship between the two has become even more strained lately with the release of journalist Bob Woodward’s book earlier this week, where he quotes Mattis as saying Trump has the mental intellect of a “fifth or sixth grader.”
Although Mattis denied the quotation and called the book a work of “fiction,” the defense secretary has often been lauded as the adult in the room by administration critics, the Times noted.
Mattis and Trump have butted heads over a multitude of policy issues, including banning transgender people from serving in the military, engaging in military exercises with South Korea, the U.S. stance toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and if withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal was a good decision.
Sources say that Mattis is becoming frustrated with the time spent pushing back against Trump and his policies regarding defense and national security.
