By most accounts, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis enjoys more independence from the White House than any of President Donald Trump’s cabinet secretaries.
Alone among Trump’s top advisers, the retired Marine general has been given free rein to run the Pentagon as he sees fit, shaping military policy in ways that sometimes conflict with the preferences of the National Security Council (NSC), and even the president himself.
Mattis has an uncanny ability to dissent from Trump’s policy positions while remaining in his good graces, as reporter Eliana Johnson explained in a POLITICO Magazine piece published Friday, “Why Trump Hasn’t Fired Mattis.”
During cabinet deliberations — and at times in public — Mattis opposed Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate change accord, decertify the Iran deal, implement tariffs on steel and aluminum, and move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Even so, his job security has never been seriously questioned, leading some administration officials to conclude that he is “bulletproof.”
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