service in his status as a defense secretary. but now reports the president is considering removing him especially after bood woodward s reporting which mattis says allegedly or credibly i think that president trump has knowledge of a sixth on the korean peninsula and other issues. perhaps general mattis isn t going to be there much longer and that s concerning, too. i want to listen to something bob woodward said on the show this morning, and it s not clear to us for people not in the intelligence community. here s what he said. here s the problem, this has not been treated seriously enough, and the things some of the things trump did and does jeopardized the real national security. this country does some things in
what he wants to do. and i think at a certain point he s going to say and he already has but increasingly will, why do i want these guys around, i should get rid of them and have people on my staff that are willing to do what i want to do. and that s where i get concerned especially with regard to general mattis which i think does the country a tremendous service in his status as a defense secretary. but now reports the president is considering removing him especially after bood woodward s reporting which mattis says allegedly or credibly i think that president trump has knowledge of a sixth on the korean peninsula and other issues. perhaps general mattis isn t going to be there much longer and that s concerning, too. i want to listen to something bob woodward said on the show this morning, and it s not clear to us for people not in the
mattis and he had to actually call the white house to find out that the decision had been made, ali. the interesting part here is mattis has succeeded as have many because they re deliberative in their actions. that according to your reporting, the president sees as slow walking, as dragging his heels on decisions and maybe that s caused the president to get out ahead on secretary mattis on these decisions because he feels mattis isn t going to come around. that s right. another example in the story is the decision to ban transgender individuals from serving in the u.s. military. apparently we found out in the course of our reporting that in early 2017 hold that thought for a second, courtney. we just now 23 minutes late got sarah huckabee sanders out at the podium. we ll pick this up later. here s sarah. i was asked to leave because i work for president trump. we are allowed to disagree, but we should be able to do so freely and without fear of harm. this goes for all people
this country. it seems to be an ethics deficiency of those who hang around donald trump. we are making this cost, mattis isn t as bad as all of the other folks, to the extent to which he isn t as bad as all the other folks, he is still doing some good. he is probably the last adult standing. if we go after him, based on this behavior, then that gets to the question, should people serve in this administration. particularly at this point, as they cycle through all of these people. what is your answer to that? i have to say, clearly, there is a deficiency, ethics deficiency in this administration, it starts from the top, everybody follows. there is a huge problem. i can t claim to know mattis well. i do know him. by reputation, i served
the press before getting on marine one is i m getting very close to having the cabinet around me that i want. that s nice. he s been president for 14 months. getting the cabinet around you like is what you want to do from the beginning. which means there are other shoes to drop and someone else will be getting the you re fired tweet probably any day now if not in the next few weeks. it is critically important that as mark said, it is not great long-term job security to call your boss a moron. rex tillerson and pompeo were strong supporters and excuse me, rex tillerson and mattis were strong supporters of diplomacy moving forward with north korea. i think that s the most important agenda item on the short-term future with regard to the president. diplomacy works in concert with the strong military. and i strongly believe that pompeo will be able to demonstrate our military as strong and forceful and that will be very beneficial as they head into these talks with north korea. whe