[Breitbart] Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told members of Congress in a private meeting this week that the recent NATO summit was "one of the most productive" he has ever attended.The comment came during a breakfast on Wednesday with a group of Republican and Democrat members of Congress, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White, when asked if that was in line with his thinking, responded, "Definitely."
The private comments contradict how the NATO summit has been broadly portrayed in the mainstream news media. Reports portrayed Trump as having accomplished little other than upsetting allies and weakening the military alliance.
"NATO is still reeling from the president’s blunt-force attack on the decades-old military alliance," Vanity Fair reported a day after it ended.
NBC News reported that Pentagon leadership had directed military leaders to do "damage control" just hours after Trump left Brussels, which Mattis immediately dismissed as "fiction."