President Trump is reportedly struggling to find a suitable person to replace Defense Secretary James Mattis after his hasty exit from the White House last month, Politico reported.
Former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who served three terms in the Senate before retiring and was appointed to fill Sen. John McCain’s senate seat after he passed away in August, turned down Trump’s offer to head the Pentagon. Kyl is the second person to rebuff the White House’s offer. Retried General Jack Keane also declined to take the position after Mattis left. As Politico notes, Keane also declined the job offer in 2016.
Mattis resigned in late December over Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, which, as he wrote in a scathing resignation letter, Mattis thought was a grave mistake.
