Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis denied writing the anonymous New York Times opinion piece from one year ago that stated, "I am part of the resistance inside the Trump Administration."

The retired Marine general, famous for being blunt, said if he had written it, he would have put his name on it.

"I wouldn’t comment on it other than to say that I’ve never believed in cowardice. If I felt that strongly about something, I would have signed it," Mattis said on Morning Joe Wednesday morning.

"I would have been right up front about it. I think you would owe that degree of candor, but I think, too, we have to look at this as a test of everyone’s character in America," he continued. "Again, I don’t think we have a problem today that suddenly mushroomed into our observation and what we’re seeing here in the last six months, last two years, or last five years. I think this is a growing problem inside America."

Mattis said the country has "lost a fundamental friendliness" and "a sense of fairness" with each other.

"We really believe in some cases, that our people believe, 'I’m right about everything and that guy is wrong about everything,' and if we don’t wake up to the idea that the people we disagree with are fellow Americans, if we don’t understand that once in a while people we disagree with are actually right and if we don’t roll up our sleeves and start working together, then we’re going to have a problem in this experiment because this would set up so it would not work without cooperation, collaboration, and compromise," he said.



In the piece, the author wrote how, "I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." The New York Times only identified the writer as "a senior official in the Trump administration."