- Trump claims that he fired Mattis and asked for his resignation, two points that Kelly refuted in an interview with The Washington Post, during which he suggested the president might be "confused" and called Mattis an "honorable man."
- The president's tweets criticizing Mattis followed a scathing statement by Mattis earlier Wednesday accusing Trump of dividing the nation in a time of unrest.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .
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'The president did not fire him': Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly defends Mattis after Twitter attacks
President Donald Trump's former White House chief of staff John Kelley, a retired Marine Corps general, defended former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis Thursday after Trump blasted Mattis on Twitter Wednesday night.
U.S. President Donald Trump (C), White House chief of staff John Kelly (R) and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis attend a briefing with senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House
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President Trump's former White House chief of staff John Kelly stepped up to defend former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis Thursday, calling him an "honorable man" and rejecting the president's claim that he fired the retired Marine Corps general.
"The president did not fire him. He did not ask for his resignation," Kelly, also a retired Marine Corps general, told The Washington Post . "The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened or is confused. The president tweeted a very positive tweet about Jim until he started to see on Fox News their interpretation of his letter. Then he got nasty. Jim Mattis is a honorable man."
Mattis, who resigned from his position in December 2018 , issued a stinging statement Wednesday criticizing Trump's handling of the nationwide unrest in the US . The former secretary of defense is one of several former military leaders to call out the Trump administration in a highly unusual rebukes to a sitting president.
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"Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us," Mattis wrote in a statement first published by The Atlantic.
Explaining that Americans must unite in spite of the president, Mattis wrote that "we must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution."
The president said that "probably the only thing Barack Obama & I have in common is that we both had the honor of firing Jim Mattis, the world's most overrated General." He claimed that he asked Mattis for his letter of resignation and "felt great about it."
When Mattis first resigned, reportedly in response to disagreements over the president's plan to abandon US partners who fought the ground war against ISIS in Syria, Trump spoke positively about the then-secretary of defense , praising Mattis for his "tremendous" achievements during his tenure as Pentagon chief.
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Mattis' resignation letter said that the president should find a secretary of defense "whose views are better aligned with yours" on issues like respecting US allies, confronting US adversaries, and protecting the international order.
The letter was widely perceived as a scathing rebuke of Trump's America First policies, which have alienated the country's closest allies. While Mattis had intended to officially step down a little later, Trump pushed him out early, replacing him with Patrick Shanahan in an acting capacity.
Although Mattis resigned, Trump claimed in January 2019 that he "essentially" fired Mattis.
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See Also:
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- One striking image shows the Marine Corps generals who left the Trump administration, after the president praised their service
- 'Glad he is gone': Trump lashes out at Mattis after he accused the president of tearing America apart
- 'We don't know any more than you know': Lawmakers in the dark about how Trump is using military against protests
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