Mattis Says He Wouldn't Have Been So Critical of Biden in Memoir if He'd Known He Was Running for President

On CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, former Defense Secretary James Mattis said he regrets being so critical of Joe Biden in his memoir since he didn’t know at the time he was writing that Biden would run for president.

In an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Margaret Brennan read him an excerpt from his new book “Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead,” in which he harshly criticizes the former vice president.

“You wrote, ‘He exuded the confidence of a man whose mind was made up, perhaps even indifferent to considering the consequences were he judging the situation incorrectly,’” Ms. Brennan said.

“Well, I was writing a history book at that point, Margaret, because I started writing this book in 2013,” Mr. Mattis replied. “Had I known the former vice president was going to run for office, I assure you I would not have probably been that forthcoming.”

“Are you raising questions about his judgment?” Ms. Brennan asked.

“I think the Obama administration, President Obama’s administration had made the decision to leave Iraq despite what the intelligence community was telling us what would happen,” Mr. Mattis said. “They were very clear that an al Qaeda-associated group would rise, that the Iraqi government, the Iraqi people, the Iraqi nation was in a post-combat, pre-reconciliation phase. We needed to keep our influence there a little longer.”

While many in the media were hoping for a scandalous tell-all about his time in the Trump administration, Mattis’s memoir has instead proven to be very unflattering to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The biggest bombshell so far has been Mattis’s revelation that Obama chose not to respond to an Iranian bomb plot on American soil in order to protect his terrible nuclear deal.

A clip of his interview was posted on Twitter:

“Had I known the former vice president was going to run for office, I assure you, I would not have probably been that…forthcoming,” Jim Mattis tells @margbrennan of his analysis of Obama-era foreign policy in his new book. pic.twitter.com/2blbEka1Oi

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) September 8, 2019

Given that Biden is seeking the highest office in the land and claims to have superior judgement on matters of foreign policy, it’s clear that Mattis’s memoir provides valuable insight into just how terrible commander in chief Biden would be.