U.S. Defense Secretary General Jim Mattis said President Donald Trump has assured him of his full support, one day after Mr. Trump appeared to cast doubts over the Pentagon chief’s fate.
Speaking to reporters as he flew from Washington to Ho Chi Minh City at the start of a diplomatic tour that will take him to Vietnam and Singapore, Gen. Mattis said he had spoken directly to Mr. Trump by phone late on Monday morning Washington time. “He said, ‘I’m 100% with you’,” said Gen. Mattis. His remark came after U.S. broadcaster CBS on Sunday aired an interview with Mr. Trump, in which he suggested Gen. Mattis may be headed out of the Pentagon door.
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“It could be that he is. I think he’s sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth,” Mr. Trump said. “But General Mattis is a good guy. We get along very well. He may leave. I mean, at some point, everybody leaves.”
Earlier on in the 20-hour flight to Vietnam — before he’d spoken to Mr. Trump — Gen. Mattis was asked what he’d made of Mr. Trump’s comments. “Nothing at all,” he said. “I’m on his team. We have never talked about me leaving. And as you can see right here, we are on our way, we just continue doing our job... no problem.” He added that he had never registered with any political party, and that those in the military are “proudly apolitical”.
Gen. Mattis’s fate has been the subject of intense speculation for months. It reached fever pitch in September, when veteran journalist Bob Woodward published a book giving an inside glimpse into a chaotic White House.
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