Via this piece, I was sent to this piece.
When John Bolton took over for McMaster in April 2018 and began appointing his own defense and foreign policy team, Mattis stopped receiving transcripts of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders, the kinds of sensitive conversations that are now at the center of the House’s impeachment inquiry.
Mattis’ patience began to wear especially thin in the spring of 2018 when Trump failed to consult with him on a host of big policy moves, from ordering the creation of a military Space Force to deploying troops to the U.S.-Mexican border, Snodgrass writes.
The surprise presidential decisions had grown for months, after beginning in earnest with a tweet from Trump in the summer of 2017 banning transgender troops from the military.
“Trump’s tweets created chaos in the Pentagon,” writes Snodgrass, who was detailed to work for Mattis early in his tenure. The damage from the transgender pronouncement “was a terrific example of how an ill-informed, and ill-considered, tweet from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue could result in a strategic defeat.”
[ … ]
Mattis also chafed at the president’s push for the Pentagon to deploy active-duty troops to the border to help stem the flow of illegal immigrants, a move the secretary considered an abuse of the military. “Mattis was now caught in his own graveyard spiral, expressing public support for a policy he didn’t agree with, bending his personal and professional beliefs to support the president,” the book says.
What in the name of all that is decent and sensible would make someone think it’s appropriate to consult a general for policy decisions or to care what the military thought of presidential orders? Does the civilian not still command the military in this country?
Why on earth would Mattis expect to receive transcripts of the president’s phone calls with foreign leaders? What world do I live in?
So did Mattis support transgender troops being in the military? This book makes it sound like he did.
Finally, the one, single, solitary duty of the armed forces under the constitution is to prevent and respond to invasion. And Mattis apparently rejected that mission in favor of foreign entanglements. Good Lord.
And good riddance.