A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

by Philip Rucker

As happened with just about everybody in Trump’s orbit, the invisible clock had run out. Late in 2018, Trump was complaining about Mattis to friends. He told one, “Mad Dog, that’s not the perfect nickname for him because he’s not aggressive enough. He’s not assertive enough. He didn’t really earn that nickname.” At the Pentagon that day, a young marine who often worked at the security station guarding the Potomac River entrance, which Mattis and his staff used to enter the building, threw his phone down on the pavement when he read the news that Trump was removing Mattis early. “Marines don’t forget,” the guard said. Marines revered Mattis, and the guard was no exception. The general had earned his reputation the slow and steady way. A bachelor who never married, the commander made it a tradition that he would volunteer to take a junior officer’s shift on Christmas Day so his subordinates could spend the holiday with their families. Trump’s treatment of Mattis upset the secretary’s staff. They decided to arrange the biggest clap out they could. The event was a tradition for all departing secretaries. They wanted a line of Pentagon personnel that stretched for a mile applauding Mattis as he left the Pentagon for the last time as secretary. It was going to be “yuge,” staffers joked, borrowing from Trump’s glossary. But Mattis would not allow it. “No, we are not doing that,” he told his aides. “You don’t understand the president. I work with him. You don’t know him like I do....