Mattis On Leaving The Pentagon: ‘I’m Thinking About Retiring Right Here’
With his typical swagger, Defense Secretary James Mattis has swatted down speculation that his time at the Pentagon is nearing...

With his typical swagger, Defense Secretary James Mattis has swatted down speculation that his time at the Pentagon is nearing its end.
- Mattis faced a barrage of questions from reporters on Tuesday about a slew of recent media reports that he is on the way out. “Those have been pretty good ones, haven’t they?” he said with a broad smile.
- When a reporter pressed Mattis on whether he was thinking about leaving, he replied: “I’m thinking about doing my job each day.”
- Mattis cautioned reporters against believing a growing of chorus of stories in the media that he will either resign or be dismissed by President Trump soon.
- “I wouldn’t take it seriously at all,” he said. “It’s like most of those kind of things in this town: Somebody cooks up a headline; they then call to a normally chatty class of people; they find a couple of other things to put in; they add the rumor; somebody on the other coast starts writing the same thing – the next thing you know, you’ve got a story. It’ll die down just like – how many times have we been through this now, just since I’ve been here?
- “It will die down soon, and the people who started the rumor will be allowed to write the next rumor too. Just the way the town is. Keep a sense of humor about it.”
- In a final exchange, a reporter asked Mattis, “You never think about leaving?”
“Of course I don’t think about leaving,” he replied. “I love it here. I’m thinking about retiring right here. I’ll get a little place down on the Potomac.”
