On Friday, The New York Times reported that according to three sources, the White House is considering former Democratic Senator and Reagan-era Secretary of the Navy, Jim Webb as the new Secretary of Defense.
According to the Times:
‘Representatives for Vice President Mike Pence and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, have reached out to Mr. Webb, one of the three officials said. Separately, a senior Defense Department official confirmed that Mr. Webb’s name had been circulating at the White House. Those two and the third official all spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal discussions.
‘Mr. Webb did not respond to a request for comment, and a White House official said the vice president’s staff has had no contact with Mr. Webb. How seriously he is being considered was unclear; Mr. Trump likes to float names as he considers his options for various openings in the government — sometimes to test responses and sometimes to keep the news media guessing.’
This past December, Former Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, resigned his post after disagreeing with Trump’s decision to begin withdrawing US troops from Syria, stating that the “president’s” views were not in line with his.
Since then, Mattis’s Deputy Secretary, Patrick Shanahan, has taken over, but according to the Times report, Jim Webb’s views align very closely to those of Trump’s plans to pull troops out of the Middle East and act more aggressively toward China, which makes him a very good candidate.
Webb was quoted as saying this about Trump’s strategy:
‘If you want a place where we need to be in terms of our national strategy, a focus, the greatest strategic threat that we have right now is resolving our relationship with China.
‘This guy Donald Trump. The Republicans hate him. The Democrats hate him. The media hates him. I think I found my guy.’
But, likely because Webb probably flat out refused this offer for the job, Trump is now all up in arms about the Times report and took to Twitter to use that familiar phrase of his: “Fake News!”
The story in the New York Times regarding Jim Webb being considered as the next Secretary of Defense is FAKE NEWS. I’m sure he is a fine man, but I don’t know Jim, and never met him. Patrick Shanahan, who is Acting Secretary of Defense, is doing a great job!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2019
As you can imagine, Twitter had a field day with this post. Here are some of our favorite responses:
We can probably expect a video to come out in the coming days of Trump praising Jim Webb while shaking his hand. Trump lies so much that he can’t remember what’s true anymore.
Featured image via YouTube.