What would you do differently as defense secretary to compensate for this record in which the greatest military in the world, as we are constantly told, doesn't get the job done?

Since 9/11 we've been engaged in wars around the world, and General [James] Mattis has been a leading battlefield commander in many of those theaters, including in the April 2004 siege of Fallujah, where the US Marines killed so many people that the municipal soccer stadium in the city had to be turned into a graveyard for the dead.

Anyone who kills women and children is not devout. ISIS cannot dress themselves up in false religious garb and say that somehow this message has dignity. We're going to strip them of any kind of legitimacy.

You can overcome wrong technology. Your people have the initiative, they see the problem, no big deal ... you can't overcome bad culture. You've gotta change whoever is in charge.

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. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up front with you — I like brawling.

Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they're so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact.

When you're in operations, the best thing you can do at the top level is get the strategy right. You have to get the big ideas right, you have to determine what is the policy, what is the level of effort you're willing to commit to it? And then you delegate to those who have to execute that strategy to the appropriate level. What's the appropriate level? It's the level where people are trained and equipped to take decisions so we move swiftly against the enemy.