Defense Secretary James Mattis has become more of a babysitter to President Trump than an advisor, according to new reports. Mattis has routinely withheld information about possible military strategies against targets around the world, thereby preventing the President from launching even more missiles or starting another war. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

Transcript:

According to a new report by the New Yorker, Defense Secretary James Mattis has essentially become Donald Trump’s babysitter and in his role as babysitter to the President of the United States, he has often clashed with other members of the Trump administration both current and former, including H. R. McMaster. In fact, McMaster at one point had said that Mattis’ withholding of information from Donald Trump bordered on insubordination. Here’s the information that Mattis was keeping from Donald Trump in his role as babysitter.

He was not telling him every possible military strategy that could be invoked in any given situation around the globe. Basically what Mattis was trying to do, was limit Donald Trump’s options so that he didn’t go and launch even more missile strikes or send missiles over to North Korea. He wanted Donald Trump to have the fewest available options that would result in the least bad scenario for the President of the United States. And that pissed off people like H.R. McMaster. I’m sure it pisses off guys like John Bolton, who want to just bomb ever country on the planet and then wait and see what happens after that, maybe send a few more missiles, if there’re any survivors anywhere.

So Mattis in his official role as babysitter to the President is only withholding information because he understands how dangerous the President of the United States truly is. This is a story that really should frighten everyone.

We know that people in the Trump administration don’t tend to last very long. Mattis has been there for quite some time now and his days could be numbered, especially with this new report coming out. If Donald Trump knows the truth, if he learns the truth that Mattis is not telling him everything that he could be telling him, then yeah, I have to imagine he’s going to be kicked out of that White House pretty soon. And then you’re going to get somebody coming in, hell, maybe John Bolton will take up that role too, telling Donald Trump about every possible scenario that could play itself out and giving Donald Trump hundreds of different options to deal with hostile countries or countries we just don’t like around the globe. And that isn’t going to end well for anyone.

Farron Cousins is the executive editor of The Trial Lawyer magazine and a contributing writer at DeSmogBlog.com. He is the co-host / guest host for Ring of Fire Radio. His writings have appeared on Alternet, Truthout, and The Huffington Post. Farron received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of West Florida in 2005 and became a member of American MENSA in 2009. Follow him on Twitter @farronbalanced