Trump's Former Defense Secretary Called Him A Threat To The Republic. The GOP Doesn't Care.
Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis thinks President Donald Trump is a juvenile and divisive leader who poses a fundamental threat to the republic. Most Senate Republicans say that’s just, like, his opinion, man.
Mattis had largely remained quiet about his former boss after resigning as defense secretary at the end of 2018 following Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria. His silence ended this week amid nationwide protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.
In an extraordinary rebuke on Wednesday, Mattis excoriated Trump’s response to the civil unrest, writing that the president abused his power by cracking down on protesters at the White House and has sown division rather than working to unite Americans.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try,” Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general, wrote in a letter published by The Atlantic.
The unusually pointed criticism from someone Trump had repeatedly praised was received by most Senate Republicans in much the same way they have prior condemnations of Trump by other top officials from his administration: a huge shrug.
“I think that’s one individual’s view,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said Thursday. “I don’t think that’s going to make a difference like some have talked about in terms of being the straw the breaks the camel’s back, so to speak.”
Sure, there were some exceptions. But those came from familiar voices.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is known to sometimes break from her party but nevertheless voted to acquit Trump during his impeachment trial earlier this year, called Mattis’ letter “true, honest, necessary and overdue.” Yet Murkowski told reporters on Capitol Hill that she continues to “struggle” with whether to support the president in the 2020 election, even though she agrees with the letter.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), another critic of...
