Mattis said wryly that he’d “rather swallow acid” than see the multimillion-dollar military parade that Trump wanted, the book said. As the relationship between Mattis and Trump frayed, Snodgrass wrote, so did morale on Mattis’s staff. Sweeney, the chief of staff, and Faller, the senior officer on Mattis’s staff, would “berate” people when Mattis was in a “sour” mood, the book said. Snodgrass wrote that he also watched Mattis’s relationship with the media begin to falter, especially after the departure of a trusted senior adviser, Sally Donnelly. After years of travel, Snodgrass wrote, he wanted to take a different assignment that let him spend more time with family.

Source: Washington Post October 23, 2019 15:54 UTC