H.R. McMaster

With Election Day around the corner, Trump’s former national security adviser speaks out, this week on Firing Line. 

 

McMASTER:  There’s not, like, a big filter there, you know, between / candidate Trump and the real Trump. What you see is what you get with that guy. 

 

He spent nearly 14 months as Trump’s national security advisor.

 

TRUMP: You’re going to do a great job (shake hands)

 

H.R. McMaster played a leading role crafting a new and more assertive national security strategy.

 

McMASTER Feb 20, 2017: We face a challenge from rogue regimes that flout international norms, pursue weapons of mass destruction, and export terror.

 

McMaster spent over 30 years in the U.S. Army, where he had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. His latest book, At War With Ourselves, examines how Trump’s disruptive behavior affected American interests at home and abroad

 

McMASTER: I describe the fragility of his ego and the need for affirmation. This is not a news flash to anybody, but one of the ways that people would try to manipulate Donald Trump was they would say, you know, ‘this will make you look weak.’ 

 

Three other generals from the Trump administration have said the former president is a danger to American democracy. What does General HR McMaster say now?

 

‘Firing Line’ with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by: Robert Granieri, Vanessa

and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, and by the following… Corporate funding

is provided by Stephens Inc.

 

HOOVER: General H.R. McMaster, welcome back to Firing Line. 

McMASTER: Hey, Margaret, it’s great to be with you. Thanks for having me. 

HOOVER: You’re a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution where I serve on the board of Overseers. And I’m delighted to welcome you back for a conversation about recent developments in foreign policy. Israel and Iran have entered into a new era of direct confrontation. China has just held maritime drills around Taiwan. North Korean troops have reportedly arrived at the front lines in Ukraine. This is a development that President Zelensky calls, quote, the first step in a world war.  // FIX // Will the United States be electing a wartime president next week? 

McMASTER: Yes, Margaret, I think we already really are at war because others are at war with us. And you mentioned a lot of these actions against Taiwan with kind of a rehearsal, it seems, of a blockade, for a blockade. But also Russia is waging, I think, a shadow war against the United States and Europe already through political subversion. So it is a very dangerous period. I think the new American president is going to face, I think, challenges to our security that we haven’t experienced since at least the Cold War. 

HOOVER: Your book, At War with Ourselves. You write about, quote, helping Trump direct his disruptive nature toward what needs to be disrupted. 

McMASTER: Right. 

HOOVER: What needs to be disrupted in the world right now? 

McMASTER: Well, a lot of our policies have been, I think, self-defeating. In particular, I think the policies toward the Middle East broadly and Iran in particular. 

HOOVER: Would you say Iran is the next president’s most urgent and acute threat? 

McMASTER: I would say it’s Iran, certainly. Because Iran has been waging this proxy war, I think, against us, you know, ‘the great Satan.’ But what’s new about it are the direct attacks between Iran and Israel.

HOOVER: And Israel.

McMASTER: And then also the degree to which they are or attacking international shipping, for example. I mean, look at the disruption of shipping, for example, in the Red Sea by the Houthis, which were a proxy of the Iranians. But also, we’ve learned just recently that Russia is providing a lot of the intelligence used to attack international shipping. So, yes, Iran is a big part of the problem that a new president will face. But it’s really the connection between Iran and this greater axis of aggressors. 

HOOVER: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on this program a few weeks ago and said the US has every right to go ahead and lead offensive measures against the Houthis directly.

McMASTER: Yes, I completely agree with that. And there’s a reason for that. It’s economic in terms of the disruption of shipping. But also, you know, it’s a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. 

HOOVER: In your book, At War With Ourselves, you detail how Trump’s disruptive nature often benefited US priorities. And one example I think you gave is his insistence that our NATO partners pay their fair share. 

McMASTER: Right. 

HOOVER: You also write about how Trump often disrupted his own agenda. In other words, his super power was also his Achilles heel. 

McMASTER: Absolutely

HOOVER: You say, quote, “Trump’s disruptive nature created opportunities while his character and prejudices rendered him unable to take advantage of it.” 

McMASTER: Yes, that’s right. And so when I talk about his character in the book, I describe, you know, sort of the fragility of his ego and the need, the need for affirmation. This is not a news flash to anybody. But one of the ways that people would try to manipulate Donald Trump was they would say, you know, ‘this will make you look weak,’ or ‘this will alienate your base.’ And what he really wants is that affirmation. And if there’s a threat that that could be taken away from him, he had a tendency to kind of disrupt himself. You know, he would oftentimes make really solid decisions that others maybe wouldn’t make. I mean, I think, for example, you know, the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Many presidents have said they were going to do that… 

HOOVER: But nobody ever had. 

McMASTER: Nobody ever had. 

HOOVER: And you think he did that out of reasons of ego? 

McMASTER: No, I think he did that because of his disruptive nature and his tendency to question conventional wisdom, which is positive. But oftentimes he would be so disruptive, he would disrupt his own agenda. For example, as you mentioned, burden sharing. 

HOOVER: Right. 

McMASTER: Everybody can sign up for that. Of course our allies should shoulder their fair share of the burden on defense. But then to go further and say, ‘Well, if you don’t pay up, we might not defend you,’ that delivers kind of a psychological blow to the alliance and emboldens somebody like Vladimir Putin, who would like nothing more than to divide the NATO alliance. So, again, it’s kind of a story of him, his disruptive nature. And I think all of us would agree, right, everybody would agree, there’s a lot of Washington that needs to be disruptive. But of course, the sad part of the story is that he tends to become the antagonist in his own story. 

HOOVER: You say that the book, the title ‘At War With Ourselves’ almost represented what was happening in the White House. You know, you had people from blatantly different points of view about what should be happening internationally just down the hall from you. How do you see us now eight years later? 

McMASTER: Yeah. Well, I think we’re in a much worse situation these days because the dangers internationally. And what you need, I think, is, you know, you need a team around a president who provides that president with a broad range of views. I mean if somebody disagreed with maybe what I was predisposed toward, or thought was the best decision for the president, I didn’t try to exclude that. I wanted to bring it in, bring in that perspective.

HOOVER: In fact, as a historian of the National Security Council, of course, your first book that was referenced on this program when you were originally on with Buckley, which we’ll show a clip of, studied the National Security Council. And one of the major lessons you say you took away with that is that providing multiple options to the president is the key lesson from the Vietnam era. So this is what you always tried to accomplish?

McMASTER: Exactly. What I learned about, when I was writing about how and why Vietnam became an American war, is that many of Lyndon Johnson’s advisers decided, ‘Hey, to keep my influence with the president. I’m going to tell the president what the president wants to hear.’ And, of course, you know, I was resolved to not do that, to always tell Donald Trump what he didn’t want to hear. Now… 

HOOVER: How did that go? 

McMASTER: It probably limited my shelf life. I mean, there’s a reason why I was only there for 13 months…

HOOVER: But it was important for you to tell him what you believe the truth was, or the hard facts?

McMASTER: Both. Both. And, of course, you know, every president is going to be the object of manipulation and influence, right? It’s the most powerful person on earth. And so what I saw as my job is to help protect the president from those who were trying to manipulate him into particular decisions, right, to get the outcome they wanted. I wanted Donald Trump to get the outcome he wanted because he was the person who was elected. 

HOOVER: Yeah. You talk about some of your colleagues down the hall. You mentioned Steve Bannon, who would go out to alt-right media and call you ‘the globalist general.’ And so…

McMASTER: Among other things. 

HOOVER: Among other…  That’s probably one of the most polite terms he used for you, or alt-right media would use for you. Steve Bannon was released from jail this week. You know, there are reports that are credible reports that he will be back into the circle of influence of Donald Trump and his advisors. Americans ought to think about, it seems to me, who will be in your position, the H.R. McMaster position, and the other sort of positions around President Trump in a second Trump administration as we go into this election, it seems to me. Who will be the H.R. McMaster of the next administration? Or will they all be from the same point of view, which is more of a revanchist, isolationist, J.D. Vance sort of worldview? 

McMASTER: Well, you know, in the confirmed positions, which the national security adviser is not, that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. But I think there are a lot of really good people waiting to serve any president, you know. And I would say if you know, if there’s a, you know, a Senator Haggerty or Cotton or somebody like that in the State Department, I’d feel pretty good about that, you know. And so I think that it’s really important. 

HOOVER: That’s of course a confirmed position…

McMASTER: Confirmed position. The national security advisor is interesting because it doesn’t require confirmation. And what’s unique about that job is that the national secret advisor is the only person in the national security and foreign policy establishment who has the president as his or her only client. 

HOOVER: Yeah

McMASTER: And so that job is really critical because to serve the president well, you want someone who understands his or her role. You know, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, you know, ‘this is what is most important, to understand well the role assigned to you.’ And I think when people get in trouble in Washington or people who don’t do the job as well as they should, they don’t really think about what their role is or they misunderstand it. They think, hey, my role is, as I mentioned, you know, to manipulate the president into the decision I want, or, in the case of, you know, the first Trump administration, this was the case for a number of people, they saw the president as an emergency that had to be contained. And so they thought it was their job to protect the country and maybe the world from the president. 

HOOVER: I’m still wondering who the likely national security staff will be in a second Trump administration. And in the in, at least in the policy realm, we see figures that are much more aligned with J.D. Vance and his revanchism, his isolation, neo-isolationist posture. Rick Grenell, for example. Tulsi Gabbard, perhaps. Tucker Carlson, heaven forbid. That’s my editorialization. [chuckle] I mean, is there anyone that gives you confidence that you see in the inner circle advising him that gives you a degree of comfort? 

McMASTER: Yeah. I just don’t know, Margaret. I mean, part of the… 

HOOVER: Well that’s concerning if you don’t know…

McMASTER: Part of the story of the ‘war with ourselves’ part of the Trump administration is, like, who wants to sign up for that program? I mean, if it’s going to be, again, you know, this sort of, you know, internal conflict and friction. And we did have, we had the friction with some of the people you mentioned, but we had the A-Team on that National Security Council staff. 

HOOVER: Well, that’s another concern. Are we really going to have the A-team second time around?

McMASTER: Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s a concern. But I would say if anybody’s listening who might want to serve in a second Trump administration, do it. Because we need you… 

HOOVER: Honestly… HR… General…

McMASTER: …Or the Harris administration. We need the best Americans to serve the president no matter who that president is. 

HOOVER: Okay. If people read your book closely, they will read what I will just say, it is not a strong affirmation for the productivity of the Trump White House, or Trump’s leadership style, I will say, from my reading of it.

McMASTER: No, and it’s very critical of President Trump. Right? I mean, I think this is one of the things that kind of confounds some people. But the book, I do, I give him credit for what he deserves credit for. But then I’m just honest about the good, the bad and the ugly of the Trump administration. And I hope that readers will, you know, make their own judgment really based on the story as I tell it. Right. I’m sure an imperfect version of it, but I tried to do my best at describing what I observed and experienced in that job. 

PUTIN AND TRUMP

HOOVER: Do leaders like Xi and Putin actually respect Donald Trump? Because you write about how they’re constantly flattering him, and he loves flattery. And I’ve heard you say, at one point you told me they’re always running an operation on him. 

McMASTER: Oh yeah, right. 

HOOVER: Do they respect Donald Trump, or are they trying to flatter him? 

McMASTER: I think they respect him. I mean, certainly they respect the office and the power of the president. But what they want to do with any president is bend U.S. policies towards their interests. And, you know, Putin is the master at it, right? I mean, he’s a KGB officer. 

HOOVER: Right. 

McMASTER: And, you know, remember what he did with President George W Bush and let his, you know, crucifix dangle out of a shirt. And, you know, there’s a, he has a long history of studying and then trying to manipulate American presidents. And every previous president right, from George W Bush to President Obama and I would say even President Biden, went through this arc of thinking they can come to some kind of entente with Putin. So I think every president has suffered under that delusion. The question is, you know, if there’s a second Trump presidency, will he learn from that? I mean, I would hope so. 

HOOVER: Yeah. Well, hope springs eternal. [laugh] There’s not a lot of substantive evidence that Donald Trump learned from anything. 

McMASTER: Or will President Harris learn from those previous experiences? 

HOOVER: Well, that’s…

McMASTER: I think. I mean, I think that’s, it’s really important to know Vladimir Putin will never be our friend. Vladimir Putin will never stop or even moderate, I think, his effort to tear down the existing order, especially in Europe and the transatlantic relationship, under the theory that he can be the last man standing. Right. He knows he doesn’t have the power to compete head on, the economic power, the military power, but what he can do is help tear everybody else down. 

HOOVER: Trump refuses to say anything negative about Putin. You write in the book that you never understood, quote, After over a year in the job, I cannot understand Putin’s hold on Trump. Earlier this week, J.D. Vance refused to characterize Putin as an enemy of the United States, quite in contrast to the characterization you just articulated. Dan Coats, who was in charge of intelligence in the Trump administration, was quoted in Bob Woodward’s book to say that Putin must have kompromat on Trump, meaning he must have compromising information on President Trump.

McMASTER: Yeah. 

HOOVER: What do you make of that? 

McMASTER: I don’t believe it. Okay. What I think, and I write about this in the book is that Trump is susceptible to the idea that he can be the person who makes a really big deal. Right? I mean, he is a self-described master dealmaker. And so that’s what he wants with his adversaries, right,  our adversaries, you know, with Putin, with Xi Jinping. But I think it’s just naive to think that Vladimir Putin is going to change his character or to divert from his overall objective, which is to restore Russia to national greatness and to do so by tearing everybody else down. 

HOOVER: I want to play for you a series of things that Donald Trump has said he will do in a second Trump administration. Take a look. 

TRUMP MONTAGE: 

We will fight together, we will win together, and then we will seek justice together (applause) // 

These people should be put in jail the way they talk about our judges and our justices // 

I think the bigger problem is from the enemy within / and we have some very bad people, some sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by national guard, or if really necessary by the military. //

On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out to get the criminals out (applause) //

You know, getting them out will be a bloody story. They should never have been allowed into our country. // 

So we’re going to have to get in some military action. And we’re going to take – if we need military – Look they’re killing 300,000 people a year.

 

HOOVER: As a historian, one of the lessons you return to is that we should listen to what people say they will do when they hold power. 

McMASTER: Right. 

HOOVER: You have worked for Donald Trump. When you see him saying those things, how seriously should we take it? 

McMASTER: Well, I think we should take it seriously. You know, I don’t think he would mobilize the military against Americans. But I do think that what he’s doing is undermining our confidence in our institutions. At the very least, that’s what he’s doing. 

HOOVER: But when he says he would mobilize the military against people in the United States, why do you think he wouldn’t? 

McMASTER: Yeah. Well, because I think there are checks on presidential power. You know, and I have confidence in the separation of powers. They were stress tested on January 6th when he encouraged an assault on the first branch of government you know, and on the peaceful transition of power, you know. And so we were stress tested before. There were other times we’ve been stress tested in our history. And I think we have to have confidence in our institutions. The question is, for me is, you know, I think the American people, you know, and of course, you know, I don’t endorse candidates or anything like that, but I think the American people have to demand from our politicians that they stop compromising our confidence in our democratic principles and institutions and processes to score partisan political points. 

HOOVER:  But I think about January 6th and the institutions that held that day. When we think about the institution that held, really in some ways it was one person in the institution of the vice presidency. //  J.D. Vance, I think, was selected precisely because he will go along with Trump’s plans, not stand up to Trump. So if institutions are about people, and the people around the president aren’t the caliber of H.R. McMaster or Vice President Mike Pence, that gives me real pause. How are Americans to account for that? 

McMASTER: Well, the way the Americans account for it is by who they put into office. Right? So I think that that’s really the ultimate check on any, you know, candidate or you know or, you know, power, is the American voter.  // So I think that we have to have more confidence in who we are as Americans, be more respectful with each other and maybe set a better example for our politicians. You know, not wait for the political class. But also, we have to demand better of that political class, you know, to stop compromising the strength of our country to score these partisan points. 

HOOVER: You have warned about President Biden’s diminished capacity and his lack of mental sharpness as a real risk for the country. Donald Trump is now older than Biden was when he took office and is increasingly prone to incoherence and confusion in his public appearances. You write in your book that you sometimes questioned whether he could still handle the, quote, “sometimes grueling” job of president in another term. Watching him today, does that concern persist? 

McMASTER: Well, I think everybody has to make his or her own judgment about that. What I’m trying to do, and I think what is proper for me to do, as a historian, but also as a retired military officer, is to tell the story and let every voter make his or her own judgment. I mean, there’s not a lot about Donald Trump that you don’t, like, see. That’s one of the things about him. Right. You showed that montage. That’s who he is. Right. There’s not like a big filter there between, you know, candidate Trump and the real Trump. What you see is what you get with that guy. 

HOOVER: In 1998 you were a guest on the original Firing Line and you talked with William F Buckley Jr about exposing the lies that led to Vietnam. Take a look at a younger H.R. McMaster. 

McMASTER: These are lies and they’re interesting in that they’re lies, not just because they’re untruths, but because they have very real consequences that seem to lead inexorably in retrospect to an American war in Vietnam. But if those, if we had substituted even a modicum of honesty in this period at several of these turning points, an American war in Vietnam was not only not inevitable, but it would have been impossible. 

HOOVER: It really feels like the transcendent theme here, from the book, from that appearance, is that telling the truth matters. 

McMASTER: Absolutely it matters. You know, and what happens is if you sweep something under the carpet or you try, you’re not honest with the president, that problem will grow and grow. And it’ll come back to do tremendous harm later. 

HOOVER: You’ve been really outspoken about January 6th and President Trump’s undermining of his oath to the Constitution after that day. I want to show you a montage of things Donald Trump has said he will do after this election about the counting of the vote. Take a look. 

TRUMP MONTAGE:

Watch for the voter fraud because we win. Without voter fraud, we win so easily. //

They cheat like dogs. They cheat so badly. //

It’s the only thing they do well, they cheat. Their policies are no good. Their government is no good. Their management is no good, but they cheat like nobody can cheat.//

If there was no cheating, if God came down from a high and said, ‘I am going to be your vote tabulator for this election,’ I would leave this podium right now because I wouldn’t have to speak.//

All they want to do is cheat. And when you see this, it’s the only way they’re gonna win. And we can’t let that happen, and we can’t let it happen again. 

 

HOOVER: Does that give you pause? 

McMASTER: Absolutely. It should give all of us pause. 

HOOVER: Yeah. 

McMASTER: And I think that what is really damaging these days is that we’ve become like our own worst enemy. This was one of the themes in the book is ‘at war with ourselves,’ right? This demagoguery, you know, on both sides of the political spectrum, you… Donald Trump takes everything to an extreme. But there’s demagoguery, I think, really, across the political spectrum…

HOOVER: It isn’t equal though. 

McMASTER: …and we just have to call it out. 

HOOVER: But it isn’t equal. There’s only one candidate who’s saying that if he doesn’t win, it will have been stolen from him. 

McMASTER: That’s, that’s absolutely right. Yeah, that’s right.

HOOVER: And I don’t think it’s fair to say ‘apples to apples, they’re both doing it,’ because they’re not. Only one candidate is doing it. 

McMASTER: Well, you know, I do think, though, if you look at undermining of institutions, there has been behavior in both political parties that have compromised our confidence in our institutions. Donald Trump, as I mentioned, everything with him is to a whole different level. You know, and I think that what we need to demand from all of our politicians, including Donald Trump, is that they strengthen our institutions rather than tear them down. 

HOOVER: You are a civilian now. You have never voted for you never voted for president, as long as you are part of the military, 

McMASTER: That’s right.

HOOVER: Only as a civilian in 2020 did you first vote for President. But you feel very strongly, personally, that it’s important to you to not weigh in on your political preferences directly. 

McMASTER: Right. 

HOOVER: Although I would just add, if somebody read your book clearly, they would see real doubt about your confidence in returning Donald Trump to the presidency. But that’s just my interpretation of your book. Why is that so important to you? 

McMASTER: I think it’s so important that there’s this bold line, you know, between our military as an institution and any kind of partisan politics. It’s why we swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Donald Trump was my seventh commander in chief who I served. And I think that it’s– Can you imagine if the military got infected with, you know, the kind of partisanship we see these days? And, of course, it’s happened, you know, with Donald Trump saying ‘these are my generals’ and so forth. And I think the message should be, hey, hands off the military and keep, help keep that bold line in place.

HOOVER: The end of your 13 months in the National Security Council for Donald Trump, as you were packing up your office, your administrative assistant said, there’s one more call you have to take. And that call was from Senator John McCain. 

McMASTER: Yeah

HOOVER: Why was it important for you to end your book with that conversation from Senator McCain. 

McMASTER: Well, you know, the book is about the rewards of service and and the importance of selfless service. Nobody personified that better than John McCain. Right. Somebody who had suffered tremendously for our nation as a prisoner of war. He was brutally tortured. And then in his public service life, right, he always did what he thought was right, you know, regardless of what the consequences were for him as an individual. And so I told the story because it was quite moving for me at the moment is now even recalling it. He wanted his phone call to me to be the last one I took when I was in the job. And he said to me, you know, he said, you know, ‘I admire you, General.’ And I said no sir, I admire you. And it was just an example, at the end of the book that I wanted to use, of service and humility. He was an extraordinarily humble person, well motivated person, and a selfless person, you know. And I mean, I think we could all use some of that, you know, in our public servants. You know, somebody who’s in the job just to make a contribution for their fellow citizens and to build a better future for generations to come. And that’s the kind of person he was. 

HOOVER: H.R. McMaster. Thank you for your service to our country and for joining me here on Firing Line again. 

McMASTER: Thank you, Margaret. It was great to be with you.