President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday night that he would be nominating retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis as his pick for secretary of Defense.
Trump made the announcement at his first post-election rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Thursday evening, hours after The Washington Post first reported the Defense pick.
“But we’re not announcing until Monday so don’t tell anybody,” Trump told the crowd.
Mattis, 66, cannot be sworn in unless Congress passes legislation to exempt him from a federal law that said any former member of the military serving as defense secretary must be retired for at least seven years. The GOP-controlled Congress is expected to grant the waiver, which would be the only time it has done so since 1950 – for Gen. George C. Marshall.
Mattis retired as head of U.S. Central Command in 2013 after a Marine Corps career that began in 1969.
Mattis mirrors Trump's thinking on a tougher stance against America's enemies, including the Islamic State (ISIS) and Iran.
Known as a strategic thinker, Mattis is soft-spoken yet blunt in his speech, hence the nickname "Mad Dog." He has been rebuked for his tough talk, but never apologized or backed down, according to a 2013 profile of him in The San Diego Union-Tribune.
In 2005, Mattis told a panel discussion it is "quite fun" to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"It's a hell of a hoot," he said. "It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
Since his retirement, Mattis has worked as a consultant and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think tank located at Stanford University.
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