The resignation/termination of James Mattis has been coming for a while, but the timing of it, in the final hours of the week before Christmas, in the middle of rabid contention over government shutdown versus funding of the mythic Mexican wall, is indicative of Trump being more out of control than he’s ever been.
Trump is “grasping for the political identity that got him here to begin with,” according to MSNBC pundit Howard Fineman, who points out that Trump’s isolationism is “politically disastrous at this point,” but Trump is remembering when it was “the good thing to do,” and acting accordingly.
Chuck Todd was conducting a panel on MSNBC when news broke of Mattis’ resignation Friday, and he quipped, “With Mattis gone, Lindsey Graham is going to go out of his mind.” Graham apparently had one too few tete a tetes with Trump at the golf course, because they are diametrically opposed when it comes to dealing with ISIS. Graham’s comments here are were recorded before Mattis wrote his resignation letter. In the letter, Mattis makes it clear that Trump is pursuing the wrong policies and Graham says in essence the same thing.
Lindsey Graham: “You will not win this war by giving up. This is akin to surrendering. We can be successful only if we partner with others. This undercuts that effort. We’ve got two choices to fight this war. In their back yard or our back yard. ISIS and Afghanistan is looking towards the United States in their target sights. Mr. President, you have a chance to change course and you have a lot of bipartisan support to do so. Take advantage of it.”
So much for Trump, bipartisanship and the Republican military establishment. Mattis was the last man standing and now he’s gone.
Chuck Todd: “Lindsey says that today. Then he drops the load on Afghanistan. Then we got word that the president is thinking about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Then we get word that Jim Mattis is retiring. Something has blown up in this relationship between the defense department and the president.”
Michael Steele: “Match to kerosene is too mild. The president has steered congressional Republicans into a box canyon in this immigration fight and then dropped in a barrel bomb, politically speaking, with these actions on national security. This is unmitigated, unfettered, blind lashing out from the president of the United States.”
People expected Trump to commit political seppuku, but this is more like political Chinese water torture — except the lashes aren’t coming one drop at a time, it’s more like one firehose-full at a time.
Graham starts at 4:34.
