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U.S. President Donald Trump said in a television interview that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably” has been involved in assassinations and reiterated the assertion that Moscow meddled in U.S. politics. Trump also said he does not know whether U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is planning to step down but that he sees the four-star general as “sort of a Democrat” who just might leave. The comments came in a prerecorded interview with CBS television’s 60 Minutes program that aired on October 14. The wide-ranging discussion also touched on North Korea, U.S. hurricane relief efforts, the missing Saudi journalist...

President Trump was on the stump for Republican candidates in Mississippi last night...... Trump said that a vote for Cindy Hyde-Smith is a vote for him, but many in the crowd at the rally wore red T-shirts saying "Trump Voters for Chris McDaniel" in support of the conservative state senator..... President Trump also made a comment about Saudi Arabia at the Mississippi rally...... Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has said that the United States can blockade Russian energy production to prevent its export..... And the United States Ambassador to NATO, former Republican Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, says that a...

The White House on Monday labeled Bob Woodward "reckless" and "careless" after some administration officials refuted claims attributed to them in his new book "Fear: Trump in the White House," ratcheting up its war of words with the Watergate reporter. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also didn't rule out a lawsuit against Woodward. "A number of people have come out and said Woodward never even reached out to corroborate statements attributed to them, which seems incredibly reckless for a book to make such outrageous claims to not even take the time to get a $10 fact-checker to call...

Longtime journalist Bob Woodward said Monday that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly “are not telling the truth” when they deny making disparaging statements about President Donald Trump attributed to them in his new book, “Fear.” Kelly is quoted calling Trump “an idiot,” and Mattis is quoted saying Trump has the understanding of “a fifth or sixth-grader,” but they’ve said they didn’t make those statements. Woodward, asked on Monday on NBC’s “Today” show about their denials, said, “They are not telling the truth.” He said “these are political statements to protect their jobs.” The...

On Thursday, the Trump administration scored an important win for U.S. grand strategy when they granted India access to advanced U.S. military technologies. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis (both were in New Dehli to sign the agreement) recognize that this order faces a profound challenge from China and, to a lesser degree, from Russia. The agreement follows the Trump administration's decision in August to grant India the highest strategic trade authorization level, putting New Delhi on a military technology access par with Australia, South Korea, and Japan. ...it will also improve India's defense capabilities...

The Pentagon is considering withdrawing nearly all American commandos from Niger in the wake of a deadly October ambush that killed four United States soldiers. Three Defense Department officials said the plans, if approved by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, would also close military outposts in Tunisia, Cameroon, Libya and Kenya, as well as seven of the eight American elite counterterrorism units operating in Africa. The shift in forces is part of the Pentagon’s defense strategy to focus on threats from China and Russia. But they represent a more severe cut of Special Operations forces in Africa than initially expected, leaving...

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis expressed solidarity with President Trump’s stripping of former Obama CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance earlier this week. “All I can tell you is, I have taken security clearances away from people in my previous time in uniform, and a security clearance is something that is granted on an as-needed basis,” he told Pentagon reporters traveling with him in South America on Friday. The comment came in response to a question on what he thought about former intelligence officials denouncing the president for stripping Brennan’s security clearance. Earlier this week, retired Navy Adm. Bill McRaven published...

Near-daily gossip surrounds Donald Trump's three marquee generals. The media sometimes blare out rumors that Gen. John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, is proving to be a loose cannon and might soon be fired. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, is occasionally rumored to be a robotic PowerPoint wonk and hawkish interventionist who soon might be terminated. Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis is purportedly too much the centrist Democrat, and embarrassed by Trump's antics, and thus might be leaving. Of course, few Cabinet or White House appointees ever serve throughout an entire administration. Burnout...

The U.S. has no evidence to confirm reports from aid groups and others that the Syrian government has used the deadly chemical sarin on its citizens, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday. “We have other reports from the battlefield from people who claim it’s been used,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon. “We do not have evidence of it.” He said he was not rebutting the reports. “We’re looking for evidence of it, since clearly we are dealing with the Assad regime that has used denial and deceit to hide their outlaw actions,” Mattis said. Syrian President Bashar Assad denies...

PARIS -- U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis made a remarkable admission last week while introducing the new National Defense Strategy. "We will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists that we're engaged in today," Mattis said, "but great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of U.S. national security." Using the term "competition" instead of "war" implies an economic component, since there are currently no direct military competitions between the U.S. and either Russia or China. Governments almost never frame military conflict in economic terms, presumably since the idea of spilling blood for any reason other than...

Secretary of Defense James Mattis flatly denied that President Donald J. Trump ever requested ten times more nuclear weapons. He also says that Secretary Rex Tillerson never called the commander-in-chief a “moron", reports the Washington Examiner. "There was no discussion with that tone or that content that I recall in the Pentagon or at any other time," Mattis told reporters during an impromptu visit to the Pentagon press area. "I will even remove that I recall. I think I would recall a conversation about doubling or ten times the nukes, Okay. I've never had that discussion.""If I had gotten...

BILL KRISTOL: The only thing that appeals to me is what Reince Priebus just called a dumb idea, which is giving the American people a better choice than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump... I think an independent candidacy is totally doable, I think it will happen. The ballot access problems are not -- STEPHANOPOULOS: -- coming up on the filing deadlines -- KRISTOL: -- oh, Texas, North Carolina. Every other state -- no other state's filing deadlines' before June 27th. You couldn't wait until the convention. You'd have to decide after Indiana, possibly after California. I think there will be...