Forget an orderly transition….
Donald Trump doesn’t really give a shit….
Jim Mattis has been getting good media/press….
He HAS agreed to step down due to NOT agreeing with his boss , who others have described as a inept and loss cannon….
He has also been widely seen as the only adult left in the Trump admin….
So?
Donald Trump seems to be pissed and wants the former general gone….
Now….
President Trump announced Sunday that Defense Secretary James Mattis, who resigned in protest last week, would leave his job on Jan. 1, two months before his planned departure.
Trump said in a tweet that Mattis’s deputy, Patrick Shanahan, will serve as acting Pentagon chief.
“Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing,” Trump wrote. “He will be great!”
The abrupt decision comes as Trump’s anger has boiled over at Mattis’s resignation letter, which was widely seen as a rebuke of the president’s foreign policy and received widespread coverage on cable news.
Trump initially praised Mattis last Thursday after announcing his departure, tweeting that the retired Marine Corps general would be exiting “with distinction” and was a “great help” in his efforts to strengthen the U.S. military.
But after Mattis handed Trump his resignation letter, which said he would leave Feb. 28, people in Washington expressed shock at how forceful the Defense secretary was in rebuking the president’s stances on issues like overseas alliances and relationships with adversaries.
One former White House official who worked closely with Mattis’s team described the letter as “a 21 gun f— you.”…..
By the way?
This probably did NOT help Mattis coming out in the media….
Sen. Dick Durbin said he is heartbroken that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is leaving the Cabinet and worried for the next two years of the Trump administration.
“I was one of many senators who privately sat down with General Mattis and said, ‘Please stay, stay as long as you possibly can,‘“ Durbin (D-Ill.) said on NBC’s Meet the Press.“ “We desperately need your mature voice, your patriotism in the room when this president’s making life or death decisions about national security. But it obviously reached a breaking point.“
Added the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate: “It breaks my heart that he’s going to step aside. We counted on him to be there and to stop this president from his worst impulse.”
top image…USToday
bottom image…Axios
Donald J. Trump
Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
1 hour ago
Unthinkable devastation from the tsunami disaster in Indonesia. More than two hundred dead and nearly a thousand injured or unaccounted for. We are praying for recovery and healing. America is with you!
2 hours ago
I just had a long and productive call with President @RT_Erdogan of Turkey. We discussed ISIS, our mutual involvement in Syria, & the slow & highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area. After many years they are coming home. We also discussed heavily expanded Trade.
2 hours ago
I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019. Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing. He will be great!
4 hours ago
The only way to stop drugs, gangs, human trafficking, criminal elements and much else from coming into our Country is with a Wall or Barrier. Drones and all of the rest are wonderful and lots of fun, but it is only a good old fashioned Wall that works!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump
Playbook: “The chatter among people familiar with the selection… is that few outside the administration want the job of replacing Jim Mattis as defense secretary, given the president’s decision to yank American troops out of Syria and other recent moves.”
“White House intimate Sen. Tom Cotton, a former Army captain and Iraq War veteran, doesn’t want to run the Pentagon, we’re told. Neither does retired Gen. Jack Keane. So Patrick Shanahan may be running the E Ring indefinitely as the incoming acting secretary, unless intel chief Dan Coats, or someone else, catches Trump’s fancy.”….
Politicalwire…