--- title: James Mattis: Why Americans Want a General in White House description: The campaign to draft retired Marine general James “Mad Dog” Mattis is just the latest in a long line of would-be commanders-in-chief. canonical: https://time.com/4303985/james-mattis-military-president-campaign-candidates/ author: Mark Thompson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-21T20:40:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:42:25.234Z article:section: Politics og:title: Why Americans Want a General in the White House og:description: The campaign to draft retired Gen. James Mattis is the latest in a long line. og:url: https://time.com/4303985/james-mattis-military-president-campaign-candidates/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbf41c2104a41aa6a/6988903e5f570f9bffb2097f/gettyimages-481703944.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: DIRECTV And Operation Gratitude Provide A Day Of Service At The Fifth Annual DIRECTV Dealer Revolution Conference og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Americans Want a General in the White House twitter:description: The campaign to draft retired Gen. James Mattis is the latest in a long line. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbf41c2104a41aa6a/6988903e5f570f9bffb2097f/gettyimages-481703944.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Americans Want a Military General in the White House > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=f8f6a9f4-df16-49ee-93c6-4c764001be6e&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: May 2012 - 10 Questions for Colin Powell [Watch (HLS stream): May 2012 - 10 Questions for Colin Powell](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/lhTwCBTd.m3u8) (6:12)  _Published 2012-05-22. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell talks about the Iraq war, why longer terms in Congress aren't better, and the time he almost ran for president_ by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Apr 21, 2016 8:40 PM UTC  Retired Marine General Jim Mattis speaks in Las Vegas last July. Retired Marine General Jim Mattis speaks in Las Vegas last July. Bryan Steffy—Getty Images by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Apr 21, 2016 8:40 PM UTC **Correction appended**: April 25, 2016. Retired Marine general James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who hung up his uniform three years ago, batted away speculation about running for President on Friday—but didn’t rule it out. Mattis—call sign “Chaos”—was fielding questions from the audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington following a talk on Iran, but the first query had nothing to do with Tehran. Instead, a reporter wanted to know if the former head of U.S. Central Command (2010-2013) has given any thoughts to running for the White House, as many of his [supporters](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/08/the-secret-movement-to-draft-general-james-mattis-for-president.html) are arguing he should. “No, I haven’t given any thought to it,” he responded quickly. Well, what about the rumors that he might run? “I think people like you know that better than I do,” he said, before moving on quickly to the friendlier terrain of international relations. After the gathering, the 65-year-old Mattis, also known as the “Warrior Monk” for his ascetic intellect, declined to issue a flat denial that he would run. His coyness is atypical. During his 44 years in uniform, part of his attraction was his willingness to offer his unvarnished, and sometimes, impolitic, [opinions](http://freebeacon.com/national-security/the-best-from-mad-dog-mattis/). “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway,” Mattis said in 2005\. “So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.” What is it about military leaders that has led so many voters to champion them for the Presidency? After all, it’s not like the nation has emerged victorious from its recent wars. But it actually may have more to do with the personal qualities Americans sense in their military leaders, rather than the battles they were ordered to fight. “As the polls show, Americans overwhelming pick the military as the institution in U.S. society in which they have the most confidence, so it isn’t surprising that some may look to the leaders of that institution to lead the nation as a whole,” says Charles Dunlap, a retired Air Force major general who now heads the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke Law School. They also perceive military officers as largely altruistic and honest, “qualities that many Americans find conspicuously absent from the traditional politicians that they see these days.”  Eisenhower, 1952 It’s a long tradition. George Washington was the first general who went on to serve as President of the United States, and some voters continue to think it’s good training for the job. There was former Army general William Tecumseh Sherman in 1884, whose emphatic “no thanks” (“I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected”) has been codified in the nation’s political lexicon as a “Shermanesque statement.” Some championed ex-Army general Douglas MacArthur in 1952, but he demurred (another retired Army general, Dwight Eisenhower, ultimately won that election, the last of 12 generals to do so). Military victory is a powerful political tonic: just ask Colin Powell, who oversaw 1991’s Persian Gulf War from the safety of the Pentagon and was white-hot as a GOP contender in 1996\. But Powell ultimately concluded he didn’t have the passion a presidential campaign required and bowed out (although he still won the New Hampshire primary afterward, as a write-in candidate). A second Army four-star, Wesley Clark, tried but failed to win the Democratic nomination in 2004. “The transition from general to President is a difficult one, but it is not the hardest part of the assignment,” says Peter Feaver, a civil-military relations scholar who has served on the National Security Council staff in both Democratic and Republican White House. “The really hard part is the transition from general to candidate.”  Powell, 1995 Despite that lack of battlefield success since 9/11, the names of senior military officers who served or oversaw the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to be mentioned as Presidential contenders. Beyond Mattis, they have included retired Army general Stanley McChrystal, retired Navy admiral Mike Mullen, and retired Army general David Petraeus. The public—especially those who’d like to see a military veteran in the White House—tends to view retired officers as Republicans, even if they haven’t declared a party affiliation. “What we have here is further evidence of the desperation engulfing the right-wing Establishment as it contemplates the prospect of (GOP candidates Donald) Trump or (Ted) Cruz winning the Republican nomination, and therefore handing the presidency to the Democrats,” says Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and military historian. None of the major candidates still in the running to become commander-in-chief ever served in the military. But they’re aware of the patina that accompanies such service. In a book published last year, Trump said he “always felt that I was in the military” because he attended a military boarding school and “dealt with those people.” Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton raised eyebrows in New Hampshire last November with her claim that a Marine recruiter turned her away in 1975 when she tried to sign up. Yet while military officers may have experience on the battlefield, most are unwilling to try to cross the political minefield that American politics has become. “Today’s political process is so prolonged and so onerous that virtually no senior military leaders of the current generation would seriously consider running,” says former three-star Army general David Barno, who led all U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, and now lectures on civil-military relations at American University. “The realities of a painfully long two-year presidential campaign, the ugly personal attacks on candidates and their families, and the highly-polarized nature of the party primaries are just a few of the reasons that make even considering the idea unpalatable to nearly anyone retired who once wore stars.” **Correction**: The original version of this story misstated Eisenhower’s rank. He was a five-star general. ## Transcript [00:00] I'm Belinda Laska I'm an editor at large at Time [00:02] Magazine. I'm sitting here with a four star general who [00:06] is also a former National Security advisor, former [00:09] chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Former secretary [00:11] of state, former teamster. The author of several books, [00:16] including a new one on leadership called It Worked for [00:18] Me. And one of the biggest fans in the world of the [00:22] movie, The Hustler. General Powell, thanks for being [00:25] here. Thank you very much, Belinda. Now, you say in [00:28] this book on leadership that the two months that you [00:31] spent mulling around for the, arguably the chief [00:35] leadership position in the world, leader of the [00:37] so- called free world. Was the most difficult two [00:40] months of your life. Yeah. Why is that. It was the most [00:42] difficult because, one, I never had had any political [00:46] aspirations, I'm a career soldier. I never really [00:49] belonged to a political party. I had views about things, [00:52] but I never spoke about them. But then I leave the [00:54] army, and suddenly my book comes out. And there's [00:56] this enormous interest in my running for office. And so [00:59] I had to think about it. And it was something of a [01:04] guilt trip that I felt on top of me. People said, you have [01:07] to do this. And I felt obliged. A soldier always wants to [01:10] do what he's supposed to do. But then it became very [01:13] clear because it was not a single morning that I woke [01:15] up. Or I put my feet on the floor and said this is right [01:19] for me, this is what I wanna do. I didn't want to do it. [01:22] Then you went on to, in that, during that campaign to [01:24] endorse President Obama. Do you think you might [01:28] endorse him again this time? I don't know, we'll see. [01:30] What I've always tried to do is look at the candidate of [01:34] both parties. But also to see what those candidates [01:37] represent. Cuz you're not only electing a person, [01:39] you're electing a movement, you're electing a platform, [01:43] you're electing a Vice President. And so, I always like [01:45] to take my time and examine all parts of the political [01:49] equation, and that's what I'll do this year. One of things [01:51] you talk about in your book is how you think members [01:54] of Congress stay on a little longer than they should. [01:57] Well you know we need congressional experience. We [02:00] need people who know how the system runs but it [02:03] seems to me that it really is not necessary to stay there [02:06] for an entire career. This really wasn't what the [02:08] founding fathers had in mind. For you to stay there for [02:10] your entire life and I think it's like we do in the army. [02:14] Move on and let some new people come in and they [02:17] come up and make the way clear. Anybody you'd like [02:20] to extend a personal invitation to leave? From [02:23] Congress, I'm saying. I don't have all of my stationary [02:27] with me so I don't [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] A lot of the [02:30] leadership lessons you draw obviously are from the [02:33] military. I wonder what you think about the sort of [02:37] spate of military scandals we've had in the last couple [02:40] of months. The sex scandal in Columbia. Recently, [02:43] there were soldiers posing with remains. Is this a [02:47] failure of leadership, or is there something else going [02:50] on? You have to remember that the armed forces are [02:52] very large. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of [02:55] young men and women. But most of them are very [02:59] disciplined, very well behaved. And if there was [03:03] a leader in the situation who saw this happening and [03:06] tolerated it. That is a failure of leadership and senior [03:09] leadership should do something about it. But all of [03:12] those things are being investigated. We don't, we don't [03:14] look past them. There's a chapter in your book, [03:16] chapter 35 where you say that the date February the [03:20] 5th, 2003 is burned on your brain as much as your [03:23] birthday. So, do you feel, even though it is not your [03:26] personal responsibility. Do you feel, guilt, over the, [03:30] over the war, over the lives that were lost in this [03:32] fruitless search for weapons for weapons of mass [03:34] destruction? I feel bad about any loss of life on either [03:38] side of a conflict. But it was a case where, the [03:42] intelligence information we're getting, made it quite [03:46] clear at the time, we thought. And the CIA stuck with [03:49] that assessment long after we didn't find anything. [03:52] They still believe that their judgments at the time were [03:54] correct. And since we based our case on those [03:58] judgments, And what we were hearing from others. [04:01] Then the President made the decision, and I think at [04:03] the time it was a justified decision based on what we [04:06] knew. How the war was fought and whether it was [04:08] fought correctly is another issue entirely. You say [04:12] that you were in Peru on 9 / 11. And you were in Asia [04:16] when some of the key decisions were made... Mm hm. [04:18] About CIA black sites. Do you think you would have, [04:21] things would have been different had you been in, [04:24] Amer, America on 9 / 11. Or when some of those... It [04:27] wouldn't have been any different on 9 / 11. I just wish [04:29] that, you know? [ INAUDIBLE ] it didn't take me eight [04:31] hours to... Get back? More than eight hours, about 12 [04:33] hours, when you figured [ INAUDIBLE ] getting the [04:35] plane ready. What about [ INAUDIBLE ]? There were [04:38] some things that took place with respect to [04:40] interrogation policies and, and detention policies that [04:45] didn't get full discussion. And maybe would have had [04:47] that full discussion had I been here and could have [04:51] Pushed it or participated in it. In chapter 16 you talk a [04:54] lot about how you revolutionized the State Department [04:57] in regard to the Internet. Mm- hm. Looking back now [05:00] on the Internet Age with Wikileaks, Anonymous, and [05:03] the speed. Just the speed at which you have to make [05:06] decisions now. Is it a net positive to [05:10] have the internet at your disposal? In terms of There's [05:13] no choice. It sometimes is very, very positive and [05:17] sometimes very, very negative. But if you're going to [05:20] live in the twenty- first century world, it's gonna keep [05:23] up with our kids. And you're gonna keep up with the [05:26] way the world is moving What I told my state [05:29] department friends. We have to move to a [05:31] transactional world. We've gotta have all the [05:35] information available to us. We don't make widgets. We [05:38] don't have an assembly line. What we work on here in [05:41] the state department is information. And our [05:43] information system, I kept emphasizing, we should try [05:47] to make it as good as Google or Wiki. And finally, do [05:50] you ever use Sir Colin? Only in the United Kingdom. Get [05:54] yourself a table at. It wouldn't be considered [05:57] appropriate here, and my British friends would not [06:01] consider it appropriate for me to use it here. It's [06:03] honorific. Sir Colin, thank you so much for being here. [06:05] Thank you my dear. 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