I’m not hysterical over the departure of Mattis, although having an acting chief of staff, attorney general, and defense secretary at this juncture in an administration is bizarre. I think it’s the bad decisions in Syria and Afghanistan that will have the longer-term consequences. Defense secretary is obviously a plum job, and Trump will almost certainly find a solid replacement. (Consider AG, where it was conventional wisdom that no one would want the job and he got Bill Barr.)


That said, it’s a very bad idea to make a sworn enemy of Mattis, which Trump is in the midst of doing because he can’t help himself. Mattis has a pretty good press game, and given how invested the media is in him, his every utterance after he leaves office — especially anything implicitly or explicitly critical of Trump — will get wall-to-wall coverage.