The President fired back via Twitter later Wednesday night,saying:"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. I asked for his letter of resignation,&felt great about it. His nickname was'Chaos',which I didn’t like,&changed to'Mad Dog'...
Trump said he had given Mattis"a new life,things to do,and battles to win,"when he hired him,but but"I didn’t like his “leadership” style or much else about him,and many others agree. Glad he is gone!"
Mattis was Obama's head of Central Command for two years,until pushed out in 2012,and was scathing in his 2019 memoir about Obama's stragetic thinking.
The criticism was all the more remarkable because Mattis has generally kept a low profile since retiring as defence secretary in December 2018 to protest Trump's Syria policy. He had declined to speak out against Trump,saying he owed the nation public silence while his former boss remained in office.
But he's speaking out after thispast week's protests in response to the death of George Floyd in police custody.
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Mattis had a scathing description of Trump's walk to a historic nearby church on Monday to pose with a Bible after law enforcement forcibly cleared Lafayette Park of mostly peaceful protesters.