Gates on Trump’s treatment of Cabinet: ‘That’s not the way I would deal with people’

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would not deal with top aides in the same way President Trump does. 

“That’s not the way I would deal with people. That’s not the way I think I ever did deal with people, and I did fire people — very senior people,” Gates told CBS’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” when asked about a report that Trump berated Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. “But, you know, every president is going to have his own style — the way he deals with people. And, as I say, it’s not the way I’d do it, but that’s the way he does it.”

{mosads}”Different presidents deal with the people that work with them in different ways,” he continued. “The first president I worked for, Lyndon Johnson, did a lot of yelling and swearing at — at his senior officials. In his own way, so did — so did Richard Nixon.”  

The New York Times reported that Nielsen was on the edge of stepping down from her post after the president criticized her during a Cabinet meeting. 

Nielsen reportedly drafted a resignation letter but never sent it. 

DHS has pushed back against the report, calling it false. 

The @nytimes article alleging that the Secretary drafted a resignation letter yesterday and was close to resigning is false. The Secretary is hard at work today on the President’s security-focused agenda and supporting the men and women of @DHSgov.

— Tyler Q. Houlton (@SpoxDHS) May 10, 2018

Gates also addressed the high turnover of Cabinet officials in the administration, saying it is “probably unprecedented.”

“For a president who had no experience in government, bringing with him a variety of people who had little or no experience in government, the churn has not been a surprise to me,” gates added. 

Trump’s Cabinet has experienced a slew of shake-ups during his administration. 

Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo recently replaced former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin stepped down in March.