Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned Thursday in protest of the president’s abrupt plan to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo White House Trump: I gave Mattis 'second chance'

President Donald Trump claimed Saturday he gave outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis “a second chance” after the retired Marine general was ousted from military leadership under the Obama administration.

“When President Obama ingloriously fired Jim Mattis, I gave him a second chance. Some thought I shouldn’t, I thought I should,” Trump tweeted Saturday evening.


Former President Barack Obama fired Mattis as head of U.S. Central Command in 2013 in large part because of Mattis’ increasingly hawkish posture toward Iran.

Mattis resigned from the Trump Cabinet on Thursday in protest of Trump’s abrupt plan to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria.

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But Trump wrote that he made sure Mattis was better equipped and more empowered in his role leading the Pentagon since January 2017.

“Interesting relationship-but I also gave all of the resources that he never really had. Allies are very important-but not when they take advantage of U.S.,” Trump tweeted.

The last line of the president’s message appeared intended to jab back at Mattis’ resignation letter.

"We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our allies,” Mattis wrote.

Prior to his nomination to become Defense secretary, Mattis had served on the boards of defense giant General Dynamics and Theranos, the since-dissolved Silicon Valley biotech firm. He was also a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University, and performed some private consulting work.