Donald Trump is preparing the cabinet for his first term as United States President and yesterday announced that General James Mattis would be serving as his defence secretary. There’s only one problem – Matiss isn’t legally allowed to be Trump’s defence secretary.
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Trump was appearing yesterday in Ohio on his USA Thank You Tour 2016, which visits all the states that flipped from Democrat to Republican in order to win him the Presidency. Speaking last night, he said the following:
We are going to appoint “Mad Dog” Mattis as our secretary of defence.
They say he’s the closest thing to [World War II commander] General George Patton that we have.
He’s a true general’s general. He’s our best.
No idea what any of that means, but yeah sure, whatever. The big problem though is that Mattis has only been retired from the military for three years, and US law states that any secretary of defence needs to be retired from active service for seven years so that the military is truly controlled by a civilian. Good one Trump.
There is a good chance that Matiss will be allowed to serve as defence secretary though, as Congress can grant him the position if they pass legislation bypassing this requirement. As Congress is controlled by Republicans, it seems as though Trump probably will be able to get Mattis in, although at least one Democratic senator has so far said they will refuse to approve this waiver. We’ll see what happens.
As for Mattis himself, he vehemently opposed Obama’s Middle East and Iran policy, stating that it was the ‘the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in region’. Not really sure what he meant but that, but yeah, be interesting to see what he comes up with if he gets the job.
For more examples of Trump’s innate stupidity, check out one oft he worst social media faux pas’ in history that he was involved in earlier this year. Unbelievable.
