Defense Secretary James Mattis and two other generals serving as top White House aides reportedly likely steered President Donald Trump away from making "consequential" decisions on the North Korea nuclear crisis.
The startling assumption by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. — the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee — came during a question and answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Washington Examiner reported.
"My presumption is, and I think it's valid, is that they have already weighed in and sometimes decisively to prevent things that could have been very consequential," Reed said.
According to the Examiner, Reed had been asked about his reaction to Trump's "fire and fury" threat to the regime in August — and whether he tried to get clarification from Mattis, Trump's chief of staff John Kelly, and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the president's national security adviser.
But when ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl pressed Reed on what Trump decisions he thought Mattis, Kelly, and McMaster had influenced, Reed would only say: "Stuff," the Examiner reported.
Reed — though he dismissed the Trump administration's messaging on North Korea as incoherent — had nothing but praise for Mattis, whom he called "the most thoughtful and experienced man you could have in the secretary of defense's office," and the generals.
"If you listen to their statements, they are very strong but controlled and they send I think the right signal, which is 'don't presume we are not ready to do what we have to do, we are ready,'" Reed said, the Examiner reported.
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