The Daily Caller is reporting that President Trump was on Fox and Friends. He said he wanted to assassinate Syrian President Bashar Assad but that Gen Mattis wouldn’t let him. Trump allegedly tore into Mattis and made the claim about Assad. He said he had wanted to assassinate him back in 2018 but Mattis wouldn’t allow it.
Trump said:
“I would have rather taken him out. I had him all set. Mattis didn’t want to do it. Mattis was a highly overrated general, and I let him go.”
“I considered him certainly not a good person, but I had a shot to take him out if I wanted. Mattis was against it. Mattis was against most of that stuff.”
President Trump further criticized Mattis. For being fired by Obama and failing against ISIS who had no concept of winning. But, in reality he could have gone after Assad if he really wanted to. He may have had second thoughts about killing the leader of a foreign country. It is illegal to do so.
Bob Woodward had made this claim in his 2018 book but this is the first time that the president has confirmed the incident.
In the interview Tuesday, Trump also noted how U.S. attacks, launched after Mattis resigned in 2018, took out ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019 and Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in 2020.
“I took out Soleimani as you know, took out al-Baghdadi. These are two of the biggest terrorists,” he added. “Al-Baghdadi founded ISIS. He was trying to build it again after I wiped it out.”