'The president speaks for himself'
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis openly differed with his commander in chief over North Korea on Wednesday, the latest example of a once-rare public display of disagreement by top US aides that has become more frequent under President Donald Trump.
"We are never out of diplomatic solutions," Mattis told reporters, just hours after Trump said in a tweet that "talking is not the answer" to the standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs.
His public contradiction of Trump's position came a day after the Pentagon chief, a retired four-star Marine general, appeared to delay implementation of Trump's decision to ban transgender people from enlisting in the military.
Mattis was also among the senior aides, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, who implicitly criticised the Republican president's response to violence at a rally organized by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month.
"I haven't seen a modern president with a pattern of this many high officials saying things like that," said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian.
Asked in a television interview on Sunday whether Trump's initial comments blaming "many sides" for the violence in Charlottesville instead of focusing on neo-Nazis and white nationalists raised questions about his values, Tillerson said simply: "The president speaks for himself."
Mattis has repeatedly made clear that diplomacy - backed by a credible military option - is the only way to prevent the North Korea crisis from escalating into a potentially devastating conflict.
When asked about Mattis' comments on Wednesday, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said: "Secretary Mattis provides the President with his best advice. It is the President who makes the ultimate decisions."
Leon Panetta, who served as defense secretary and CIA director under former Democratic President Barack Obama, said the airing of differences inside the Trump administration had its roots in the president's habit of sharing his opinions in Twitter posts.
"I think the problem is that they (advisers) are now dealing with a president who tweets his thoughts to the country," said Panetta, who has said he had his own policy differences with Obama.
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