'Dangerous,' 'unfit,' and 'felony stupid': The most revealing quotes from Jim Mattis on Trump
On dealing with Trump, Mattis said: ""I was often trying to impose reason over impulse. And you see where I wasn't able to, because the tweets would get out there."
On the president's morality, Mattis reportedly said: "The president has no moral compass." (Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is said to have agreed, saying: "To him, a lie is not a lie. It's just what he thinks. He doesn't know the difference between the truth and a lie.")
On receiving orders from Trump, he said: "I never cared much for what Trump said. I ran the Department of Defense. I kept him informed in my private meetings. I wouldn't do it in public, because he would have to play a role then. But I didn't get any guidance from him, generally, other than an occasional tweet."
In response to Trump's weakening of alliances, Mattis said: "What we're doing is we're actually showing how to destroy America. That's what we're showing them. How to isolate us from all of our allies. How to take us down. And it's working very well. We are declaring war on one another inside America. It's actually working against us right now."
On a president being tough and keeping the peace, Mattis said: "Not with the current occupant. He doesn't understand. He has no mental framework for these things. He hasn't read."
On Trump's go-it-alone strategy and dismissal of alliances, Mattis said: "It was indefensible. It was jingoism. It was a misguided form of nationalism. It was not patriotism."
On Trump's lasting impact on the country, Mattis said: "This degradation of the American experiment is real. This is tangible. Truth is no longer governing the White House statements. Nobody believes—even people who believe in him somehow believe in him without believing what he says."
On his decision to resign, Mattis said: "I was basically directed to do something that I thought went beyond stupid to felony stupid, strategically jeopardizing our place in the world and everything else, that's when I quit."
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/