Some of the freshest details in the book involve Mr. Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who has been viewed as an anchor in Mr. Trump’s cabinet. Mr. Woodward portrays Mr. Mattis as frequently derisive of the commander in chief, rattled by his judgment, and willing to slow-walk orders from him that he viewed as reckless. In the North Korea meeting, during a period of high tension with the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, Mr. Trump questioned Mr. Mattis about why the United States keeps a military presence on the Korean Peninsula. “We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Mr. Mattis responded, according to Mr. Woodward. In April 2017, after President Bashar al-Assad of Syria launched a chemical attack on his own people, Mr. Trump called Mr. Mattis and told him that he wanted the United States to assassinate Mr. Assad. “Let’s go in,” the president said, adding a string of expletives. The defense secretary hung up and told one of his aides: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.” At his direction, the Pentagon prepared options for an airstrike on Syrian military positions, which Mr. Trump later ordered. Mr. Mattis issued his own statement denying he ever used the “contemptuous words” that Mr. Woodward attributed to him. “While I generally enjoy reading fiction,” he said, “this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility.” Mr. Woodward’s reporting adds another layer to a recurring theme in the Trump White House: frustrated aides who sometimes resort to extraordinary measures to thwart the president’s decisions — a phenomenon the author describes as “an administrative coup d’état.” In addition to Mr. Mattis and Mr. Cohn, he recounts the tribulations of Mr. Kelly and his predecessor, Reince Priebus, whose tensions with Mr. Trump have been reported elsewhere. Mr. Cohn, Mr. Woodward said, told a colleague he had removed the letter about the Korea free trade agreement to protect national security. Later, when the president ordered a similar letter authorizing the departure of the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mr. Cohn and other aides plotted how to prevent him from going ahead with a move they feared would be deeply destabilizing.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON – White House Chief of Staff John Kelly denied describing President Donald Trump as an "idiot," as Trump and his aides sought to push back Tuesday on a new book by veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward that depicted the West Wing as "Crazytown." In the first of two tweets, Trump cited denials by Kelly and other aides in claiming that "their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public." He suggested that Woodward – whom he praised just last month – is a Democratic operative who timed the book to this year's congressional elections. "Notice timing?" he said. Trump also tweeted out written statements by aides on the Woodward book, including one from his chief of staff. “The idea I ever called the President an idiot is not true," Kelly said, adding that the claim "is another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes." Kelly repeated a statement he made in May, saying that he and Trump "have an incredibly candid and strong relationship." Nearly four hours after his first tweet about the book, Trump tweeted again, this time at 11:01 p.m. ET to deny that he labeled Attorney General Jeff Sessions as "mentally retarded" and a "dumb southerner" in what he called the "already discredited Woodward book." "I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing," Trump tweeted. "He made this up to divide!" Titled "Fear: Trump in the White House," the Woodward book is scheduled to be released Sept. 11. Woodward, who rose to fame via his coverage of the Watergate scandal during the Richard Nixon presidency in the early 1970s, is an associate editor at The Washington Post, which published excerpts of the book Tuesday. The excerpts described a struggle by aides to rein in Trump. Regarding the fraught relationship between the president and his chief of staff, the Post reported Woodward found that Kelly "frequently lost his temper" over Trump and that he thought the president was "unhinged." "He’s an idiot," Kelly said, according to the Post's account of Woodward's book. "It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.” Trump himself said Woodward has "credibility problems" – though the president told the author last month he thought he had always been fair. “I probably would have preferred to speak to him, but maybe not," Trump told The Daily Caller website. "I think it probably wouldn’t have made a difference in the book. He wanted to write the book a certain way.” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders attributed the book's criticism of Trump to "disgruntled" former aides. More:Woodward book 'Fear' reflects chaos in White House, says Kelly called Trump an 'idiot' The Postpublished what it said was a conversation Woodward had with Trump after the book was finished. The author detailed how the White House rebuffed his requests for an interview with the president. At one point, Trump told Woodward: "You know I’m very open to you. I think you’ve always been fair. We’ll see what happens. But all I can say is the country is doing very well." The White House denials echoed those made about previous critical books, particularly those by journalist Michael Wolff and former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman. In the wake of the White House attacks, Woodward told the Post he stands by his reporting. 'An orange jumpsuit' Among Woodward's other revelations: • Former defense attorney John Dowd and colleagues did not want Trump to testify before Russia special counsel Robert Mueller because they didn't think he could tell the truth. The book discusses a mock interview that attorneys conducted with Trump in which the president fared poorly and that lawyers re-enacted parts of that interview for Mueller himself. “Don’t testify," Dowd was quoted by Woodward as saying. "It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit.” In a statement emailed to USA TODAY, Dowd said he has not read the book and does not plan to address "every inaccurate statement" attributed to him, but he denied he replayed the mock interview before Mueller, that he questioned the president's truthfulness and that he made the remark attributed to him about the orange jumpsuit. • Former economic adviser Gary Cohn removed papers from Trump's desk to block efforts to remove the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, as well as a separate trade deal with South Korea. In his interview with The Daily Caller, Trump denied that aides have removed documents from his view, saying “it’s just made up” and that “there was nobody taking anything from me.” • Trump told Defense Secretary Jim Mattis he wanted to have Syrian leader Bashar Assad assassinated after evidence surfaced of a chemical weapons attack on rebels in that country; Mattis ignored the request and planned the targeted missile strike on chemical weapons facilities that Trump eventually approved. Mattis denies calling Trump 'fifth- or sixth-grader' Woodward also reported that Mattis once described Trump as acting like a "fifth- or sixth-grader," prompting a denial by the defense secretary. Mattis said in a statement that he never uttered "contemptuous words" about the president and added that Woodward's "anonymous sources do not lend credibility" to his book. In her statement, Sanders called the Woodward book "nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the president look bad." Late Tuesday night, Trump tweeted links to stories by The Daily Caller and Breitbart News that highlighted Mattis' denial of the claims in Woodward's book.<doc-sep>Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has been remarkably successful — until now — at avoiding headlines suggesting that he personally disdains President Donald Trump. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images White House Mattis faces his 'moron' moment The Pentagon chief has avoided the private snickering about Trump that has cost others but is featured in new Woodward book. It's no secret that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis often disagree, but the disciplined retired Marine general has kept any private frustrations from leaking into public view. At least until Bob Woodward came along. In his forthcoming book, the veteran investigative journalist reports that an exasperated Mattis, who has gone to great lengths to maintain his rapport with his commander in chief, unleashed on the president in a private conversation with associates, comparing Trump to a “fifth- or sixth-grader.” The revelation puts Mattis in a hot seat similar to ones occupied by several other top Trump officials, including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former national security adviser H.R. McMaster and White House chief of staff John Kelly, who have all reportedly insulted Trump’s intelligence — and watched their relationship with the president suffer as a result. In particular, Tillerson — a close Mattis ally — saw his fate sealed with the infamous October 2017 disclosure that he had referred to Trump after one tense national security session as a “fucking moron.” Officials say the disclosure irreparably damaged an already-tense relationship between Trump and his top diplomat, whom the president fired five months later. But while other officials, like Kelly, have endured multiple stories citing their criticisms of the president, Mattis has been remarkably successful — until now — at avoiding headlines suggesting that he personally disdains Trump. Mattis associates say the defense secretary feels a grave duty to ensure America’s security and has worked hard to avoid running afoul of the president. So it was little surprise when he swiftly issued a statement challenging Woodward’s reporting and insisting that he did not slight the president. "The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward's book were never uttered by me or in my presence. While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility,” Mattis said in a statement released by the Pentagon. “In serving in this administration, the idea that I would show contempt for the elected Commander-in-Chief, President Trump, or tolerate disrespect to the office of the President from within our Department of Defense, is a product of someone's rich imagination,” the statement added. Mattis is traveling in Asia this week. It is unclear whether the fulsome denial — which Trump himself posted on Twitter soon after its release — will contain the damage. Woodward told the Post: "I stand by my reporting." “This is going to drive Trump nuts,” said Mark Perry, a military historian and journalist who has chronicled Mattis’ tenure at the Defense Department. “He’s going to exact his revenge,” Perry predicted. People who know Mattis expressed surprise that the anecdote made its way into Woodward’s book. Mattis is notoriously tight-lipped — and, unlike other Cabinet secretaries, he has tried to stay out of explosive closed-door arguments among senior aides. “He was always very careful, even in private situations, of speaking ill of the president,” said one former senior Pentagon official. According to The Washington Post, Woodward writes that Mattis made the comment after a Jan. 19 National Security Council meeting in which Trump questioned the value of a U.S. intelligence operation that allows for swift detection of North Korean missile launches. When Trump questioned America’s entire presence in Asia, Mattis countered: “We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Woodward reports, according to the Post. “Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader,’” writes Woodward, himself a Washington Post editor. The timing of the disclosure is particularly fraught given that Trump’s relationship with Mattis has suffered in recent months, people close to the White House note, as the president has wearied of the defense secretary’s often dissenting foreign policy views on issues ranging from Russia to Iran to North Korea. Some expressed surprise that the two men have not clashed directly more often. One former administration official said Trump’s relationship with Mattis started to go downhill after the president reluctantly announced last year that the United States would continue its involvement in the war in Afghanistan — a stance that Mattis strongly advocated over Trump’s inclination to pull out. Woodward’s book also includes the revelation that when Syrian dictator Bashar Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on civilians last year, Trump told Mattis in expletive-laden terms that he wanted Assad assassinated. Mattis responded that he would look at the options but then hung up the phone, turned to a top aide and remarked, “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured,” Woodward reports. The U.S. wound up executing a narrowly targeted missile strike against a handful of Syrian sites. In public, Mattis has taken extraordinary effort to stay in Trump’s good graces. According to one senior military official who has seen the pair together, Mattis has an uncanny ability to calm Trump and reason with him — and works hard to avoid headlines suggesting daylight between the two men. Mattis has generally succeeded, despite a dust-up over a 2017 video, originally posted to Facebook, in the days after the deadly white nationalist demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, when Trump was roundly criticized for drawing an equivalence between white nationalists and counterprotesters. Mattis, in off-the-cuff remarks in Jordan, encouraged a small group of American troops to “hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.” When the remarks were characterized by close observers of the administration as appearing to be a rebuke of Trump, Mattis made a beeline to the Pentagon press room to, in his own words, set the record straight. He insisted his meaning was the exact opposite, explaining they were made shortly after he watched a Trump policy address on Afghanistan in which the president uncharacteristically called for bipartisan civility. Mattis has conceded some disagreements with Trump on policy. Last summer, he told reporters that the first time they met the pair sparred over the role of NATO and the use of torture to interrogate terrorism suspects. He has also publicly aired differing views from Trump on diplomacy in North Korea and transgender troops in the military. But Mattis has insisted that the press exaggerates such disagreements, saying that any difference between the two men is “widely misinterpreted." “Right now, if I say ‘six’ and the president says ‘half a dozen,’ they’re going to say I disagree with him, so let’s just get over that,” Mattis contended. “If that’s the story that some people want to write, then they’ll find the way, they’ll sort out something.” But now, Mattis’ insult of the president’s intellect, as reported by Woodward, could further imperil his status with a president who is hypersensitive to personal attacks, especially when they get wall-to-wall cable news coverage. One person close to the White House questioned how the president could trust Mattis’ “judgment” after being caught comparing the commander in chief to a grade-school student. Added Perry, Mattis “prizes loyalty, and so he practices it. Anything he says is always under his breath to himself. He rarely shares anything negative about anybody else.” The former official credited Mattis’ rapport with Trump all these months to his being “the only guy who doesn’t patronize the president.” He recalled that even when Mattis at times thought Trump’s positions were unwise he would carefully explain why and pledge to get back to him with a series of courses of action to consider. “If this is going to be the thing that leads him to lose his job or his access, that would be unfortunate,” the former Pentagon official added. “I don’t think anyone has bent over backwards more to remain loyal to what is a very erratic boss than Mattis has.”<doc-sep>
Defense Secretary James Mattis on Tuesday pushed back against a passage concerning him in journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, calling it “fiction” and “a product of someone's rich imagination." The Watergate reporter wrote that Mattis once described President Trump as having the understanding of “a fifth- or sixth-grader” when it comes to the Korean Peninsula, according to The Washington Post. ADVERTISEMENT “The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward's book were never uttered by me or in my presence,” Mattis said in a statement. “While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility.” The Post report on Tuesday recounts a National Security Council meeting on Jan. 19, citing Woodward’s upcoming book, “Fear: Trump in the White House.” At the meeting, Trump questioned U.S. government spending in the region, as well as the significance of having a big U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula, Woodward wrote. Mattis after the meeting “was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader,’” according to the Post's account of the book. The defense chief said in his statement that “responsible policy making in the real world is inherently messy,” though “it is also essential that we challenge every assumption to find the best option. “I embrace such debate and the open competition of ideas. In just over a year, these robust discussions and deliberations have yielded significant results, including the near annihilation of the [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] ISIS caliphate, unprecedented burden sharing by our NATO allies, the repatriation of U.S. service member remains from North Korea, and the improved readiness of our armed forces. Our defense policies have also enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress,” Mattis wrote. "In serving in this administration, the idea that I would show contempt for the elected Commander-in-Chief, President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE, or tolerate disrespect to the office of the President from within our Department of Defense, is a product of someone's rich imagination." Woodward’s book is set to be released next week and has already been fiercely criticized by those within the Trump administration, including the president himself.