McMaster on His Service to Trump and Why He Won't ReturnExBulletin

Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster receives a farewell message from White House staff on his last day in the Trump administration, April 6, 2018. Courtesy of the author.

. Courtesy of the author.

In a memoir about his time in the Trump administration, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster recalls telling his wife that he couldn't understand Russian President Vladimir Putin's hold on President Trump.

The same book insists that during McMaster's 13 months, the United States did much to revise its global strategies to face a changing world.

McMaster recounts how he had to struggle to help the president avoid mistakes, such as responding to Putin’s flattery in embarrassing ways. Yet McMaster says he was not among the officials in Trump’s inner circle who believed their job was to protect the country from his erratic or dangerous actions.

McMaster is both an academic and the author of Dereliction of Duty, an acclaimed history of American military decision-making during the Vietnam War, and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I was the target of policies and strategies that were developed in Washington that didn’t make sense to me when I was in places like Baghdad or Kabul,” he said in an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep. So when he was offered the job of NSC chief, he took it. “I saw it as an opportunity to help a disruptive president disrupt a lot of what needed to be disrupted in foreign policy and national security.”

That's at least part of the story he tells in his new book, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.

The other part recounts the times when McMaster had to deal with Trump himself being manipulated by advisers at home and dictators abroad.

Speaking ahead of his book's release on August 27, he said he would not serve in a Trump administration again. If President Trump is re-elected, of course, I wish him well. [the] “I want him to succeed. If our next president is Kamala Harris, I wish her the best, I wish her success,” he said on Morning Edition. “But I think my opportunity to serve in the Trump administration has run out.”

However, he urges others to serve and do their best.

Of his working relationship with Trump, McMaster writes in an excerpt from his book: “I was the leading voice telling him that Putin was using him and other politicians in both parties to try to undermine Americans’ faith in our democratic principles, institutions, and processes. Putin was not and would never be Trump’s friend. I felt it was my duty to point that out.”

But Trump has made his own decisions, often taking a contrary view.

You know, what motivated President Trump is actually, I think, what motivated President Obama and President George W. Bush early in their tenure with Putin, McMaster said. Putin is a great liar. He’s a great deceiver. He offers every new president flattery and the prospect of global cooperation. So I alerted the president to that. Often, he wouldn’t hear it.

McMaster spoke of competing interests within Trump's inner circle, from the influence of White House adviser Steve Bannon to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who often break protocol and work around McMaster's National Security Council.

He characterized the top White House positions in three different ways.

The first category is made up of people who come into the administration to help the president-elect define his own agenda. McMaster saw his role this way.

The second group of people who come into the White House or any administration are motivated by their own agenda. The third group of people are motivated primarily by the desire to protect the country and perhaps the world from the president. I think in the Trump administration, those second and third categories of people were quite numerous.

One of the dysfunctional moments McMaster describes in his book is Trump’s remarks in May 2017 at NATO headquarters in Belgium. Trump, like his predecessors, wanted to push NATO countries to spend more on their own defense. When McMaster learned that Trump had deleted a line from his prepared speech affirming America’s commitment to defending its allies, he pressured a reluctant Tillerson and Mattis to join him in dissuading Trump from doing so. Although they convinced him to change his speech, Trump’s skepticism of NATO never went away.

In his current presidential campaign, Trump has reiterated once again that he may not support NATO allies that fail to meet their commitment to spend 2% of their GDP on defense.

The radio version of this interview was produced by Lilly Quiroz, and the digital version was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi.

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