The Washington Post is reporting Donald Trump will offer the Secretary of Defense position to James Mattis. 

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis to be secretary of defense, nominating a former senior military officer who led operations across the Middle East to run the Pentagon less than four years after he hung up his uniform, according to people familiar with the decision.

To take the job, Mattis will need Congress to pass new legislation to bypass a federal law that states secretaries of defense must not have been on active duty in the previous seven years. Congress has granted a similar exception just once, when Gen. George C. Marshall was appointed to the job in 1950.

The concern on the inside is how Mattis will get along with General Flynn who will have Trump’s ear most of the time:

But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Trump’s personnel choices, said, “If there’s any concern at all, it’s the principle of civilian control over the military. This role was never intended to be a kind of Joint Chiefs of Staff on steroids, and that’s the biggest single risk tied to Mattis. For Mattis, the biggest risk for him personally is that he’ll have a national security adviser in the form of Mike Flynn whose management style and extreme views may arch Mattis’ eyebrows and cause conflict over time. It’s no fun to be secretary of defense if you have to constantly feud with the White House.”

This does, however, end the likelihood of David Petraeus’s chances of being Secretary of State. Trump’s advisers have to be warning him of having too many military men in specific areas, specifically at State, where diplomacy ranks highest.