It's great to welcome to the program today. Guy Snodgrass, who's a retired American Naval
aviator, who served as [inaudible]
geneticists, speechwriter, and chief of communications. He is author of the new book holding the line
inside Trump's Pentagon with secretary Mattis. It's so great to have you on. I appreciate
your time.
Yeah, thanks David. Thanks for having me.
So what was your understanding of why president Trump chose Jim Maddis as his defense secretary
to begin with?
I think there's probably two reasons. I think the one and the most important one is that,
uh, Jim Mattis has a great reputation throughout Washington and uniform circles as well. Uh,
as I understand it, and I have some friends who are on the transition team that actually
helped president Trump. And then at that point of course, president elect Trump put together
his, uh, forthcoming cabinet. And, uh, like I said, Madison has a great reputation and
he's, he's beloved in military circles. Uh, he's known as not only a warrior, but a scholar.
He's got recent relevant experience. So I think that was hopefully the most important
reason. But we've heard the president himself say on numerous occasions, he loves individuals
who are straight from central casting. So to have someone who had been a recently retired
general who kind of looks the part X the part has a lot of pithy quotes and sayings that
made him sound pretty terrific, I think is probably what really swayed the pendulum over.
Would it be fair to say in your estimation that it was not the, the position of Jim Mattis
on any particular issue that was appealing to Trump?
I don't think that's the case. I think that, you know, if you think about how president
Trump has operated with what we've seen so far, you get into, you know, year three of
his presidency. Um, like I said, he likes people straight from central casting. He likes
people who are going to be, uh, unquestionably loyal to him. And so for Jim Madison self
to have shared publicly, he said that when he went in and he had his, uh, interview for
the role of secretary of defense with both president elect Trump and president like pants
that he had disagreed with the president. And every single question he was asked, that's
an auspicious start for a role is one of the most senior members of Trump's cabinet. So
I don't think there was certainly any of his positions per se, but I think that, uh, again,
he's got great reputation and Trump liked what he saw.
What in your mind is it that made Madison not the right fit for Trump in the end? As
we saw it, eventually it became very public. Presumably this was noticeable privately before
it became noticeable publicly, although maybe not. What, what was it that made them not
actually as compatible as, as maybe a would have worked better for them?
Yeah,
well I think it's, it's interesting, you know, even from my role working on secretary, Madison's
personal staff and anybody who's had that kind of a job before you realize job number
one is protect your boss. Uh, and that can mean a couple of different things. It could
mean that you, um, help shield your boss from anything that might be untoured in the press
or you want to keep people who would be, you know, sick of fans away from them. It also
means protect your boss, uh, so that you temper some of their worst instincts. Or if they,
if they want to lash out, I want to do something that wouldn't be in their best interest. You
want to help shore them up and make sure that they don't inadvertently shoot themselves
in the foot. And, and I think that's one thing that maybe president Trump didn't account
for with secretary Mattis was that lucky. He's a retired four star general. He's headstrong,
he believes very deeply and doing the right thing. And so if president Trump had felt
that madness would just blindly go where he pointed them, I think that's where that that
distance started to grow. And like I share in the book as you get into the winter of
2018, the spring of 2018 when Tillerson and McMaster, Tillerson being then secretary of
state and McMaster being the national security advisor at the time when they both walk out,
you knew that it was going to get pretty tough, pretty quick.
The policy via tweet stuff. I mean, one story that has been relayed quite a bit related
to that is, correct me if I'm wrong on the details, but I believe that Jim Mattis was
out of the country and did not know that Donald Trump was going to be tweeting an announcement
about, uh, removing transgender military service members changing the policy around that. Um,
talk a little bit about that and the more general idea of the policy by tweet. What
was was Jim Mattis, his sense of that?
Well, so you're touching on a couple of different things here. One, uh, so to be clear, he wasn't
out of the country. He was actually in Washington state, is a been mother who unfortunately
has since passed away, but he was home visiting with his mother, spending, uh, you know, this
is a guy who dedicates himself, uh, he is in the office about 12 to 14 hours a day.
Uh, rarely takes time off. And one of the first times he goes, uh, West of the Rockies
to take some time off and here comes this transgender ban and the thing, and it was
tweeted as you mentioned. So the thing that really was just so terrible about this from
an organizational standpoint is that Madison kept Trump in the loop. He'd kept secretary
Tillerson, and he kept everyone who needed to be in the loop, uh, with regards to how
they were going to one research, uh, what the right course of action would be, what
his recommendation should be to the president per the president's request.
And then the first time that it comes up, boom, it's a tweet, a series of three that
just completely reverses us policy. And more importantly, Maddis knew that that would not
stand a legal defense. Uh, instead of having it underpinned by hard facts and, and expert
interviews, uh, you just suddenly change everyone's policy and it wasn't gonna stand the test
of time. And that was just one of many that I highlights. Uh, as I, as I recount the two
years that Matt has had with secretary, or excuse me, that Madison had with president
Trump. Uh, you had the no noticed announcement of the space force creation. You had the no
notice reversal of, uh, the United States going to cease all major military exercises
with South Korea. And of course that's in the paper again today. So that's one of the
things that's been so fascinating is when you look at this two year experience that
I capture into one book, you know, people might say, okay, well Maddis left at the end
of 2018 we're 10 months beyond that. Things have changed. They haven't, a lot of the same
issues are still coming up, whether it's the troops at the border. Um, the current negotiations
ongoing with North Korea and of course, South Korea and Japan. It was also in the news this
weekend where Japan was pushing back. And so is South Korea about these, uh, significant
increases in funding that president Trump wants out of them. So there's a lot of things
that just continue to reverberate.
So in the 10 months since a general Matt has left, are there specific policies that have
been carried out that you believe would not have been? Were Jim Mattis still in his position?
That's a, that's a tough one, right? I mean, that's kind of revisionist history. There's
a lot of speculation there. I do think though that you have seen more push back more, and
I don't mean push back in that you would have a secretary of defense openly defy the president.
He served. Look, secretary Madison's a politician, he took a political job in order to be a part
of the Trump administration. So you can't step away from that. I think the concern though
is that as you've seen how the, you know, president Trump made a statement when he was
the president elect, that he wanted to bring the best people into his administration. Uh,
the best men and women he could find the most talented. And I think we've all watched as
a lot of those individuals who stood by their principles rather than blind loyalty suddenly
got pushed aside.
And so you better know, you know, in many cases there's been a second or a third or
even a fourth person. In fact, secretary Esper or the current serving secretary of defense
for the U S military is the fourth guy to have that job. So, uh, for that to have occurred
in such a rapid period of time, there's no doubt that he is going to be more pliable,
uh, when it comes to fulfilling the president's agenda. And that includes what we've seen
with, uh, sending troops to the border to using military funding, which is crucial to
rebuild military. It's crucial for putting ships to sea and tanks out in the field or
for exercises instead of using it to build a border wall, for example, on the border
with Mexico.
Yeah. One of the things, you know, I share what some on the left and some on the right
have seen as sort of a, a renewed respect in a sense for some of the main people like
Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson and others who said this. As far as we've come, I can't,
in short paraphrasing, I can't do this anymore. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm out.
But at the same time, Donald Trump has been a known entity for so long. I mean, the Trump
we're seeing as president, uh, in the last year is the same Trump we saw as president
in the first year is the same Trump that we believed would be president in the transition
period and during the campaign. So at the same time, there's a question of what, what,
what didn't they see at the time? What didn't Tillerson see or what didn't matter? See,
is it as easy as saying when the president asks you, you do it? Uh, but clearly that's
not the case because ultimately there was a limit to that. So that's where I sort of
start to get confused. Why was anybody so surprised that this is the way it went?
You know, I think that you could certainly say, uh, and I, I don't think anybody needs
to be forgiven per se. It's just a turn of phrase. But you could be forgiven for saying
that. Um, when you have president elect Trump, he is new on the political stage, relatively
speaking. I mean, everyone knew he was a land developer from New York. Uh, people had seen,
you know, Trump steaks, Trump water Taj Mahal and all these things he's done throughout
his career. But there's, I'm sure everyone had a little bit of a candle of hope that
when he came into the office, he would be different. Um, and he would listen to these
men and women who are the experts who spent, uh, decades. And they've dedicated, in some
cases, their entire adult lives to serving the nation that Trump wouldn't be differential
per se, but that he would certainly adhere to or he would want to know what their best
thoughts were and how could he use that to inform his policy.
And I don't think it went that way. And let's also be honest, these are men and women who
are incredibly ambitious. This is their opportunity to make change, to have a positive influence
on the direction of the nation and the direction of the departments they served. And I have
no doubt secretary Maddis absolutely wanted to be the secretary of defense regardless
of any concerns he had with president Trump because it was his chance to help restore
America's military. He cares deeply about the men and women who serve. And he felt he
could do more good in the job than he would harm. And, and I think we saw that for about
two years.
The book is of course, super interesting and you detail a lot of interesting discussions,
which were actually the subject of some controversy which I want to talk about. So if I recall
correctly, there was a period of about four months during which the book was in the hands
of the Pentagon's censors, I guess we would call them. I don't know if there's a more
appropriate or technical phrase for them. And uh, you eventually sued the Pentagon saying
they were stalling the release of the book for no real good material reason. Oh, tell
us a little bit about that. What was the controversy around the book that stalled it?
Well, I think, you know, let's, let's start from the first principles if you will. Every
senior leader wants to determine their own destiny. They want to set the narrative for
how they're perceived and anybody junior to them who may want to tell their story is a
little bit of a threat. And you know, you can look back through history. Winston Churchill,
I loved his quote, which was something along the lines of that he, you know, after following
world war II, he said that history would be kind to them because he intended to write
most of it. And I thought that was a great way to put it. So secretary Mattis, you know,
he had written a book about leadership that he published after he left a secretary of
defense. And I have no doubt that as time goes forward, he's going to want to continue
to set the narrative of what he accomplished and the, and the great things that occurred
under his watch.
Uh, my problem with that is that a lot of times just like, uh, for example, former secretary
of state, Henry Kissinger, you know, you have Henry Henry Kissinger's autobiographies, which
paint one side of the coin. But then you have someone like Walter Isaacson, who's a noted
scholar who comes in behind and says, hang on a second, I'm going to do an independent
look. I'm gonna do a biography of Kissinger and share with you all the, all of what it
looked like behind the scenes because there's a lot to learn there. And that's the approach
I wanted to take with my book. So it was an apolitical approach. It was a chance to really
take a look at the entire two years. Secretary Madison served for president Trump and you
know, that's threatening to secretary Mattis. He can't control that narrative and that's
an uncomfortable place to be. So I could have gone, sought to delay the book.
They sought to block the book. And I think that they probably were just a little surprised.
I decided to stick with the plan or stick with the project and, uh, go ahead and, uh,
ultimately have to fight the Pentagon. And to your point, you know, it, it was moving
very swiftly until about the beginning of June. I mean a month end, the white house
that approved the manuscript, the state department had approved the manuscript, everyone external
to the Pentagon was complete and then suddenly when Madison's own book got submitted for
review and got bogged down, then suddenly mine surprisingly got bogged down to, so,
uh, that all culminated at the beginning of September where I filed a suit and the department
of justice knew that it was going to be a losing case within a week. They had contacted
me, said, Hey, could you please drop the case? We're going to give you the book.
That's interesting. So you're, you're there. So there were actually two things, but it
sounds like maybe they're, they are related, or at least you're suggesting they're related,
which is it being held up in the sort of redaction or censorship phase by the Pentagon. But then
if I recall correctly, general Maddis had questioned whether you were the right person
to be talking about what went on, but you believe maybe the things are related in the
sense that the reason that the sensors started slowing it down was because Maddis had a book
himself that he was working on.
Oh, w w I don't think there's much doubt there. I mean, secretary Mattis, you know, I kept
him. Look, he's, he's my former boss. I have a great deal of affection for forum, uh, as
someone who I respect deeply who served a country very well. And I learned a ton during
my year and a half with him and the Pentagon, but there's no doubt in my mind. I mean, in
January of this year, I had contacted secretary Mattis to let him know I was going to embark
on this project. Then as we reached the middle of March, uh, I wanted to give them a heads
up that we were going to announce the book project. And he immediately took that email
that I sent them and forwarded it to the Pentagon to put the sensors onto me. So, you know,
it's unfortunate. I think a lot of that stuff, uh, tends to play out behind the scenes.
And in my case, I felt very passionate about this project and, and didn't feel that I should
be bullied in stepping away from it. I thought there, and I still believe there's a lot of
information in this book that is recent, relevant and important for Americans to read about.
Like what really happens behind the scenes, what it's really like to be in the room with
president Trump or vice president Pence or secretary Palm PEO. Like these are individuals.
Of course, we were still in their respective roles today. You can read for yourself what
it's like to be in those meetings and make a, an educated judgment on whether you like
the direction that we're going or you think there needs to be a change.
Yes, and many of those descriptions are a fascinating to read. We've been talking with
guy Snodgrass who is not just a retired American Naval aviator who served as geneticists, speechwriter
and chief of communications. He also wrote the book holding the line inside Trump's Pentagon
with secretary Maddis guy. Really appreciate your time,
time and, and uh, you telling us about not only the process, but about, uh, your time,
uh, working with Jim Mattis. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thanks David. Thanks for having
me.