Jeh Johnson, who ran the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, said Sunday that the cadre of generals and retired generals advising President Donald Trump must remain in place for the good of the country, Politico reports.
“Frankly, if John Kelly, or my friend Jim Mattis, came to me and said I’m thinking about resigning from this White House, I’d say absolutely not. You have to stay,” Johnson said on ABC’s This Week.
“As John reportedly said, it’s country first. And we need people like John Kelly, Jim Mattis, H.R. McMaster to right the ship.” he added.
Kelly, the White House chief of staff, and Mattis, the secretary of defense, are retired from the military. McMaster, the president’s national security adviser, remains on active duty.
Johnson said no one expected so many retired generals to be holding civilian positions in the White House, but that he’s glad they remain there despite a raft of resignations from the president’s advisory councils and talk about whether other White House officials might depart. He also laid out a national security argument for cities removing Confederate monuments, noting that they become “rallying points” for white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
“We fought a world war against Nazism. The KKK rained terror on African-Americans for generations,” he noted.
“And so a number of Americans, rightly, Republican and Democrat, are very concerned and very alarmed. And I salute those in cities and states who are taking down a lot of these monuments for reasons of public safety and security.” Johnson concluded.
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