Oh Man, This General Mattis Burn Against Trump Is Brutal
Credit to Author: Morgan Baskin| Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:52:00 +0000
Jim Mattis hasn’t said much publicly since he stepped down as President Trump’s defense secretary last December, but he had plenty to say Thursday night — at Trump’s expense.
The decorated Marine Corps general, speaking at a black-tie dinner in New York in his first public remarks since departing his government post, certainly could have focused on the president’s military or foreign policy blunders and scandals, of which there are many, past and present. But instead, Mattis delivered a string of one-liners roasting Trump for everything from his evasion of the draft to his well-documented love of golf.
“I earned my spurs on the battlefield. Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor,” Mattis said Thursday referring to Trump’s admission that he managed to avoid serving in Vietnam because a doctor diagnosed him with bone spurs in his feet.
Mattis later quipped, “A year according to White House time is about 9,000 hours of executive time, or 1,800 holes of golf.” (Conservative estimates peg the cost of Trump’s golf habit to taxpayers at $100 million.)
It was just a day after Trump called Mattis the “world’s most overrated general,” and Mattis had to acknowledge the superlative.
“I’m honored to be called that by Donald Trump, because he also called Meryl Streep an overrated actor,” Mattis also said on Thursday night. “So I guess I’m the Meryl Streep of generals.”
“I’m not just an overrated general. I’m the greatest, the world’s most overrated,” he said, mocking Trump’s proclivity for hyperbole.
Mattis left the Trump administration in December after nearly two years as the defense secretary –– a healthy stint, compared to how quickly other Cabinet officials have fled their posts.
“I had no choice but to leave,” Mattis said after retiring. His confidantes have told reporters that Mattis found the president tactically unskilled and personally difficult to like. Late in his time at the Pentagon, Mattis and Trump began to clash more frequently over defense strategy, and as early as 2017, Mattis was caught on film hinting at the Trump administration’s dysfunction to U.S. troops stationed in Jordan.
“Our country right now, it’s got problems we don’t have in the military,” Mattis said at the time. “You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.”
Cover: Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, center, delivers the keynote address during the 74th Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
This article originally appeared on VICE US.