Former White House chief of staff John Kelly said President Trump did not fire former Defense Secretary James Mattis, as the president claimed following scathing criticism from Mattis.
“The president did not fire him. He did not ask for his resignation,” Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, told the Washington Post on Thursday. “The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened or is confused. The president tweeted a very positive tweet about Jim until he started to see on Fox News their interpretation of his letter. Then he got nasty. Jim Mattis is a honorable man.”
Mattis resigned in late 2018 after Trump decided to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. On Wednesday, he released a blistering statement criticizing Trump’s handling of the protests across the country in response to the killing of George Floyd in police custody. The former defense secretary accused Trump of dividing the nation and called him a threat to the Constitution.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis wrote.
“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside,” he said. “We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”
Trump unleashed on Mattis via Twitter.
“Probably the only thing Barack Obama and I have in common is that we both had the honor of firing Jim Mattis, the world’s most overrated General. I asked for his letter of resignation, & felt great about. His nickname was ‘Chaos’, which I didn’t like, & changed it to ‘Mad Dog’,” Trump tweeted. “His primary strength was not military, but rather personal public relations. I gave him a new life, things to do, and battles to win, but he seldom ‘brought home the bacon’. I didn’t like his ‘leadership’ style or much else about him, and many others agree. Glad he is gone!”
Hours after Kelly defended Mattis, Trump turned his ire to his former chief of staff, saying Kelly was not kept afloat of his decisions.
…in my inner-circle, was totally exhausted by the job, and in the end just slinked away into obscurity. They all want to come back for a piece of the limelight!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2020
The problem with asking for someone to give you a letter of resignation, which you do as a courtesy to help them save face, is that it is then harder to say you fired them. I did fire James Mattis. He was no good for Obama, who fired him also, and was no good for me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2020
