Cliff Sims

No, he's going to make the decision that he's going to make, but he will engage with you on why do you think that, and you know,

what would lead you to that conclusion?

Because I'm in a totally different place.

So he's willing to be persuaded on things.

And in fact, I think one of the unique things that he did in his White House that was very constructive was most White Houses are ideological conformists.

And I don't even mean that derogatively in a way, because if you saw a candidate that you wanted to support so much that you were willing to go spend all your time trying to get them elected, and then you end up in the White House with them, chances are you agree with them on pretty much everything.

In the Trump White House, just look at the trade issue.

You had Gary Cohn was the chief economic advisor.

He is probably best described as like a free trade Democrat.

You had Peter Navarro, who was the kind of top trade advisor, and Robert Lighthizer, who was the US trade representative.

These are much more, they might derogatively be called protectionists, but certainly more inclined to use tariffs as a tool in economic statecraft.

You know, they're totally different from Gary Cohn ideologically.

Those were the people in the Oval Office arguing about trade all day.

And so you have a diversity of opinions that you're not going to get in most White Houses.

Now, where it breaks down is when the president makes a decision,

if one of those two sides lost the argument, they have to be willing to subordinate their views to the president's decision and execute on his vision.

And I do think there were breakdowns at times in the Trump White House where people were not willing to subordinate their own views to the president's views, which gets me directly to the John Mattis question.

General Mattis' resignation came at a time when President Trump was trying to get us out of Syria.

And he felt strongly that we need to get out of Syria.

And