"Mattis had tried to force his preferred candidate on Trump, but many Trump supporters believed that the last thing he needed was a Mattis clone as chairman. By pushing prematurely, perhaps because Mattis knew he would be leaving well before Dunford's term expired on September 30, 2019, Mattis had hurt his own cause. At our next Ward Room breakfast, Thursday, December 13, the mood was decidedly unhappy for several reasons, but largely because we all felt, silently to be sure, Mattis was coming to the end of his ride. It didn't bother me that Mattis' obstructionism would be leaving with him, but his departure was part of a problematic, almost inevitable pattern. None of the three prior Republican Administrations in which I served had seen anything approaching this extent and manner of senior-level turnover."

“Obama will be very good at that point at pretending to be the commander-in-chief. We have to have a Republican who will be able to look him in the eye and beat him in that debate. You can have lots of people writing talking points for you, and you can have lots of people writing posts on your website, but, out there, it's one on one. And if we're not prepared to win that debate-we're gonna be in trouble.”

“War by radical Islamist terrorists against the United States began long before 9/11 and will continue long after. You can like it or not, but it is reality. Donald Trump didn't like it, and acted like it wasn't true. He opposed "endless wars" in the Middle East but had no coherent plan for what followed withdrawing US forces and effectively abandoning key regional allies as the withdrawal unfolded. Trump liked to say, wrongly, it was all "thousands of miles away." By contrast, during my time at the White House I tried to operate in reality, with mixed success.”

“I'm against abortion as a form of birth control, and I basically hold to the Reagan position.”

“People have said to me, 'Well, if you ran you might get more speaking appearances, and you could sell another book.' Frankly, that's the last thing on my mind. If I get in, I'll get in to win.”

“With 2020 being a presidential election year, it was inevitable that Trump's performance in this global health emergency would become a campaign issue, which it did almost immediately. And there was plenty to criticize, starting with the Administration's early, relentless assertion that the disease was "contained" and would have little or no economic effect.”

“Of course, politics is ever present in government, but a second-term Trump will be far less constrained by politics than he was in his first term. The irony could well be that Democrats will find themselves more pleased substantively with a "legacy"-seeking Trump in his second term than conservatives and Republicans. Something to think about.”