There’s no one as straightforward and no nonsense as Defense Secretary James Mattis. He is one of the only people associated with the Trump administration that I respect. I somehow wish he could have been president. (that may be the Marine Infantryman in me fan-girling though)
Bret Baier interviewed him last week, some diaries have popped up regarding some of his comments but i wanted to highlight something that struck me as awesome.
At one point, Baier asked Mattis if he had any plans to leave the administration, and Mattis’ response was BRUTALLY honest.
“Well, if I did, Bret, you wouldn’t be the one to know.”
*nervous laugh*
Mattis elaborated on that, and it was fantastic.
“But, ladies and gentlemen, let me explain something. When the president of the United States, Republican or Democrat, male or female, none of that matters — when the president of the United States — and I’ve never met Mr. Trump until I met him as president elect when he called me back for a job interview — when the president of the United States asked you to do something in America, you just do it, to quote Nike — just do it. Don’t get caught up in the Hamlet, wishing and wondering and ringing your hands or something like that, and say, to do or not to do, or whatever, just do it. Get up, go up, do your job to the best of your ability, uphold the Constitution, give the president your best military advice, in my case,” he said.
“But, you know, we’ve got to get back to the point where service in this country is something you do,” he continued. “I mean, to tell you the truth, the only reason I’m back in this low-paying outfit — (Laughter.) — is because I love the troops, because I learned to hate mine fields at age 21, but I love guys so valiant they would go through looking for something they didn’t want to find, because they didn’t want their buddy behind them to step on it, and the other reason is I’ve got a love affair of the U.S. Constitution. I’ll just leave it at that.”
I went looking for this because i had recently approached Secretary/General Mattis about appearing on a radio show I produce and co-host. He agreed to appear in January. That was until last week, our mutual friend reached out and informed me that he, Mattis, needed to reschedule for the Spring when he would have more “flexibility” in his schedule. Made me wonder.
Hope some readers here can also appreciate his sentiment and his character. I love it and wrote this just to throw my guy a little love.