Mattis on Criticizing Biden in Book: I Wouldn’t Have Been as ‘Forthcoming’ If I Knew He Would Run for POTUS

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis told Face the Nation he regretted lambasting Joe Biden in his book, saying he wrote the critique not knowing Biden would run for president.

CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan noted that Mattis has fastidiously refrained from criticizing President Donald Trump directly both in his book and in his media appearances. But she noted his book Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead contains a harsh assessment of Biden’s manner.

“You wrote, ‘He exuded the confidence of man whose mind was made up, perhaps even indifferent to considering the consequences were he judging the situation incorrectly,'” Brennan noted.

“Well, I was writing a history book at that point, Margaret, because I started writing this book in 2013,” Mattis said. “Had I known the former vice president was going to run for office, I assure you I would not have probably been that forthcoming.”

“Are you raising questions about his judgment?” Brennan asked.

Mattis responded:

“I think the [Barack] Obama Administration, President Obama’s administration had made the decision to leave Iraq despite what the intelligence community was telling us what would happen,” he said. hey were very clear that an al-Qaeda associated group would rise, that the Iraqi government, the Iraqi people, the Iraqi nation was in a post-combat, pre-reconciliation phase. We needed to keep our influence there a little longer.”

“Do you think that your resignation did help to stop the withdrawal from Syria?” Brennan then asked.

“Well, I’ll let the historians sort that out,” Mattis said.

Watch above, via CBS News.