General [James] Mattis has got a really intellectual mindset about how the United States should go about protecting its national security.

[General James Mattis] said, reading allows you to learn from other people's mistakes without filling body bags with the bodies of your soldiers as you learn on the battlefield.

[General James Mattis] a very talented individual. He's - has a personal library of about 10,000 books and he's read most of them on military history and strategy and so forth.

Certainly, we shouldn't go about making a habit of taking generals and making them secretary of defense.

I think this does show that there will be some changes, not so much in Europe or Asia but certainly in the Middle East. General [James] Mattis has called for a comprehensive strategy to combat the various enemies the United States faces in the Middle East, especially Iran.

Iran has proxies in Yemen, Syria, Iraq. You can push back against Iran without pulling out of the deal.

I think that you will see some significant changes in the [Donald] Trump administration.

So in his very politically-incorrect way, I think [James Mattis] is a good counterpart to Donald Trump, who doesn't read books.

Given this president [Donald Trump] and his lack of military experience, I think it actually might be a good thing to have someone who understands the military very deeply to be counseling him.

[ General James Mattis] is a Marine's Marine who has served in combat in both Afghanistan and Iraq.