No One Lining Up to Replace Mattis

Playbook: “The chatter among people familiar with the selection… is that few outside the administration want the job of replacing Jim Mattis as defense secretary, given the president’s decision to yank American troops out of Syria and other recent moves.”

“White House intimate Sen. Tom Cotton, a former Army captain and Iraq War veteran, doesn’t want to run the Pentagon, we’re told. Neither does retired Gen. Jack Keane. So Patrick Shanahan may be running the E Ring indefinitely as the incoming acting secretary, unless intel chief Dan Coats, or someone else, catches Trump’s fancy.”