Lesley Stahl, who interviewed the US president for CBS 60 minutes, which will air on Sunday night, kept repeatedly pressing her subject on persistent rumors Jim Mattis will leave his post, which have escalated following the announced departure of his colleague, Nicky Haley from her UN envoy post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a very good relationship with him. I had lunch with him two days ago. I have a very good relationship with him,\u201d<\/em> replied Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cIt could be that he is. I think he\u2019s sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth. But General Mattis is a good guy. We get along very well. He may leave. I mean, at some point, everybody leaves. Everybody. People leave. That\u2019s Washington.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n The highlight was perhaps that Trump regards Mattis, who has never publicly declared his views, a Democrat, though the president has mentioned this inkling before. Definitely not what was a non-committal and innocuous reply on his future.<\/p>\n This is how the media framed it.<\/p>\n CBS: \u201cTrump \u201860 Minutes\u2019 interview: President suggests Defense Secretary James Mattis could leave Cabinet.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Bloomberg: \u201cTrump Hints Pentagon Chief Mattis May Be Planning to Quit.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The Guardian: \u201cTrump: Jim Mattis ‘sort of a Democrat’ and could quit as defense secretary soon.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The Daily Mail: \u201cTrump signals more Cabinet changes to come with General Mattis on the chopping block.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Perhaps these outlets have some privileged wisdom about the situation, or maybe merely by failing to guarantee that he is staying, Trump is signaling that Mattis is leaving. The current administration has enjoyed a rapid turnover as the president has attempted to find qualified politicians who are loyal, share his views, can keep on his good side, and don\u2019t mind his methods and personality.<\/p>\n But for a media that the US president often accuses of twisting his words, and publishing \u201cfake news\u201d<\/em> the media outlets did little to contradict his words.<\/p>\n Subscribe<\/a> to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media won\u2019t tell you.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An apparently measured and philosophical answer from Donald Trump about the job prospects of his defense secretary incited a bout of media hysteria. Lesley Stahl, who interviewed the US president for CBS 60 minutes, which will air on Sunday night, kept repeatedly pressing her subject on persistent rumors Jim Mattis will leave his post, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":380960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-380959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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