Trump taps Shanahan as defense secretary

US President Donald Trump plans to nominate acting Pentagon chief Patrick Shanahan as his next secretary of defense, the White House announced Thursday. The former Boeing executive has been acting secretary for more than four months, since James Mattis resigned in protest over Trump’s surprise announcement of a rapid withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Syria. A politically flexible management professional originally brought to the Pentagon to modernize its trillion-dollar acquisition program, Shanahan said he was happy to accept the nomination.