Congress will need to pass special law to allow retired officer to take Pentagon’s top post
“We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our secretary of defense,” Mr. Trump said
.. Gen. Mattis rose through the ranks of the Marine Corps over 43 years to become the U.S. military’s top commander in the Middle East.
.. Since retiring in 2013, Gen. Mattis has become a vocal critic of what he calls Washington’s “strategy-free” approach to warfare and threats. He has urged the U.S. to engage in the Middle East more directly and without preset limits on the use of force, echoing critics of President Barack Obama’s administration who say it has taken an overly incremental and fair-weather approach.
.. The selection of Gen. Mattis adds to Mr. Trump’s reliance on former military officers for his national-security team. The president-elect chose retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his national security adviser and is considering Navy Adm. Michael Rogers to become director of national intelligence. He has also spoken to another retired Marine Corps general, John Kelly, about a top administration post... Gen. Mattis has also served as a director at the eblood-testing startup, Theranos Inc., for the last three years as it battled regulatory sanctions and federal criminal and civil probes... In 2012, Gen. Mattis, then leading the military’s Central Command, pressed for the U.S. Army to procure Theranos lab equipment and deploy it in the battlefield
Trump Lavishes Praise on General as He Nears National Security Picks
“What a career — we are going to see what happens, but he is the real deal,” the president-elect added.
.. As head of the Central Command, General Mattis was heavily involved in plans to counter Iran’s military and protect the sea lanes in the Persian Gulf.
.. Before attending church with Mr. Pence, Mr. Trump once again condemned the cast of “Hamilton” for its onstage appeal on Friday night to Mr. Pence — who was in the audience — to uphold the rights of a “diverse America.”
“The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior,” Mr. Trump wrote.
.. the president-elect’s Twitter complaints about “Hamilton” and “Saturday Night Live” provided a distraction.
That may have been the intention. Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts diverted attention from other issues, including a $25 million settlement in a lawsuit against Trump University, concerns about conflicts of interest involving the president-elect’s business dealings
.. Mr. Trump reacted by calling the cast members “very rude and insulting” to Mr. Pence and claimed that they “couldn’t even memorize lines.” He later deleted the Twitter post about the cast’s supposed faulty memory.