President Trump, Defense Secretary James Mattis At Odds Over North Korea?

WASHINGTON, DC — One day after President Trump and his Defense Secretary James Mattis appeared to publicly disagree on how to deal with ongoing military threats from North Korea, Mattis said he didn't "contradict anything the president said."

Trump on Wednesday tweeted: "The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!" Later that day, during a meeting with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-Moo, Mattis seemed to walk back Trump's cutting off potential discussions with Pyongyang. Asked about Trump's tweet, Mattis said, according to CBS News, "We're never out of diplomatic solutions. We always look for more. We're never complacent."

Yet on Thursday, Mattis walked back the walking back. “It didn’t contradict anything the president said. We’re not talking to the North Koreans right now,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon, reports Politico. (For more national political news, sign up for the free White House Patch email newsletter.)

North Korea's latest missile launch came on Monday, over Japan. The United States' U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said "even is enough," speaking about the latest instance of aggression from Kim Jong Un, according to CBS News.

Trump and Mattis' contrasting views on the escalating North Korea situation comes after other apparent differences of opinion between the secretary of Defense and his boss.

After Trump announced a ban of transgender people in the military, Mattis instituted a review of the ban, which some considered a "halt" of the ban. Such a view of Mattis' move, however, is a misinterpretation, writes Newsweek's John Haltiwanger. He adds:

Depending on the findings of the assessment Mattis has ordered, there is a slight chance he could recommend to Trump not to move forward with the ban. But, at the moment, there's nothing to suggest Mattis will do this.

Recently, video made the internet rounds of Mattis speaking to some service members, saying, “Our country, right now, it’s got problems that we don’t have in the military. You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.” Some took that as a veiled rebuke of Trump, although the secretary did not mention the president.

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