In ‘At War with Ourselves,’ McMaster recounts his time in the Trump White House

As the presidential race heats up, a new book looks at Donald Trump’s first administration with respect to foreign policy and national security. Trump tapped H.R. McMaster, a three-star general who served in the Gulf War and Iraq War, to be his national security adviser in 2017. Geoff Bennett spoke with McMaster about his book, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.”
Geoff Bennett:
As the presidential campaign heats up, a new book looks back at Donald Trump’s first administration with a focus on foreign policy and national security.
It’s written by Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, a three-star general who served with distinction in the 1991 Gulf War and the Iraq War, and who also served for 13 months as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser.
McMaster’s book is “At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.”
And I spoke with him earlier today.
H.R. McMaster, welcome to the “News Hour.”
What was your intention in joining the Trump administration back in 2017? What were you hoping to achieve?
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.), Former U.S. National Security Adviser: Well, first, to serve the elected president.
As I write in the book, this was my sixth commander in chief. I had taken the oath of service when I was a 17-year-old on the plane at West Point. And so what I wanted to do is help, in President Trump’s case, what everybody knew would be a disruptive president, disrupt what needed to be disrupted in the area of national security and in foreign policy.
And, Geoff, I have been on the receiving end of a lot of policies and strategies developed in Washington that really made little sense to me in places like Kabul, Afghanistan, or Baghdad, Iraq. And I thought this was an opportunity to help advance American interests and to help promote American security.
Geoff Bennett:
You write in the book about navigating the competing interests within Trump’s inner circle in the early days, to include then-White House adviser Steve Bannon, who’s now serving a federal prison term on contempt charges, as well as then Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
And you say that they viewed Trump as dangerous and seemed to construe their roles as if Trump was an emergency and that anyone abetting him was an adversary.
When I read that, that word dangerous stood out to me. Dangerous in what ways?
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
Well, I think that they were afraid that the president, because of his disruptive nature, would be overly disruptive and put into place policies that may be cut against U.S. interests.
But my experience was, Geoff, whenever you could give the president multiple options, best analysis, obviously, and information, but multiple options, it’s in the comparison of those options, that he could look at the long-term costs and consequences and make decisions that oftentimes cut against his predilections.
Other members of the Cabinet and other White House officials, what they really wanted to do is either control the president or, in the case of some, who came in with their own agendas, they didn’t want to give multiple options. They wanted to manipulate decisions consistent with their agenda.
And as a historian and a historian who had written about the Vietnam War and how decisions were made in the Lyndon Johnson administration, I realized that this was not unprecedented. This kind of infighting, this is not something new, and I did my best to try to transcend it. And I succeeded to some extent, and I failed to a certain extent.
Geoff Bennett:
That manipulation that you talk about, you describe meetings in the Oval Office as exercises in competitive sycophancy.
How did that undermine the functioning of the White House and the presidency?
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
So that was early in my time as national security adviser. And I looked around, I said, this isn’t going to work.
And I began to limit who’s in the meeting based on the purpose of the meeting and to provide the president with information the way he likes to receive information, and to also structure the venue. But on one occasion, we went to Camp David, for example, to get away from all distractions and help the president focus on a really important decision involving Afghanistan and the South Asia strategy.
Geoff Bennett:
Well, on that front, you write that you had key differences with Mr. Trump on major foreign policy issues, which you enumerate as the allies, the authoritarians, and Afghanistan.
Trump thought that some U.S. allies were freeloaders. He embraced some authoritarian leaders that you despised and distrusted. And you pushed for a more significant commitment in Afghanistan. And you have said that Donald Trump bears some responsibility for that chaotic U.S. withdrawal, that same withdrawal that he attacks the Biden administration for.
Tell me more about that.
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
On Afghanistan, this is an example of one of the themes in the book of the president being very capable of evolving his understanding of a situation and then coming to a completely different conclusion.
And he put into place, I believe, in August of 2017 — and it’s actually worth going back to read that speech that he gave — the first sustainable, reasoned approach to the war in Afghanistan and more broadly to South Asia.
But, sadly, he abandoned that approach and I think actually recreated a lot of the deficiencies of the Obama administration with the timeline for withdrawal and talking to the Taliban without the Afghan government present. And that was kind of a setup for the Biden administration’s failures.
But the Biden administration did not have to adhere to that. Remember, the Biden administration said, well, we had to adhere to Trump’s policies. I think that might be the only area where they felt so obligated, right?
Geoff Bennett:
Yes, that was their public line, yes.
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
Exactly, yes.
Geoff Bennett:
Another theme in the book, you write about your perception that Trump often sought the praise and approval of strongman foreign leaders like Vladimir Putin, the Philippines former President Duterte, so that he could be seen similarly as a strong leader.
Tell me more about that.
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
In that first year of the Trump administration, I relate the story of really imposing more sanctions on Russian entities and individuals than the previous eight years of the Obama administration, the provision of lethal assistance to Ukrainians.
But President Trump really always had faith in his ability to make a big deal, right? And I think he fell into the same kind of trap with Putin that George W. Bush did, President Obama did remember the reset strategy, and then even President Biden when he went to Geneva and thought that maybe they could have a meeting of the minds.
And so my message — and I relate this in the book — is, I would remind the president, hey, this guy is the best liar, best deceiver in the world.
Geoff Bennett:
Well, you say that you observe in the book that you wished Trump could separate the issue of Russian election meddling from the legitimacy of his presidency…
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
Yes.
Geoff Bennett:
… why has he been so unable to make that kind of distinction?
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
Well, you have to think, when he came into office, right, there was this cloud of so-called collusion, which was proved to be false, right, on the part of the campaign.
And he had the Mueller investigation. That created kind of a sense of beleaguerment for him. And what he would do is conflate three distinct, but kind of related questions of, hey, did they attack the election and try to undermine our democratic process? Heck, yes, they did. That’s what the Russians do, right?
There’s the great book by Thomas Rid called “Active Measures.” They have been doing this kind of thing, the Soviets, going all the way back to the ’30s. But the second, related question is, do they care who wins? I really don’t think the Russians give a damn who wins our elections, right?
Geoff Bennett:
The chaos is the point.
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
The chaos is the point.
And what they want is, they want large numbers of Americans to doubt the legitimacy of the result. I think the president tended to conflate those questions. And I wish he had said this, that, heck, yes they did, and we’re going to impose costs on them, and we’re going to defend our democratic principles and institutions and processes and — but, at the same time, acknowledge that obviously it did not affect the legitimacy of his presidency or his election.
That’s what Russia wants. And that’s why the president’s election denial was terrible in 2020. And that’s why others on the other side of the political spectrum who denied the legitimacy election in 2016, it’s a gift to Putin.
Geoff Bennett:
This book arrives at a timely moment, just as many Americans are starting to consider whether Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris would make a better commander in chief.
Would a second Trump term, in your estimation, be poised to properly address the range of foreign policy challenges we face as we stand so close potentially to regional wars in the Middle East and the South China Sea?
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
Yes, that’s for readers to decide. You have got the information in the book.
And I think, in some of the areas where President Trump has been consistent, yes, I think he would advance American interests. I think a great example is in the area of energy security. I think we have tremendous potential in our country to really loosen the grip of authoritarians on energy supplies internationally.
And then I think that where else he’s been consistent is burden-sharing, right? That’s a good theme, reciprocity in trade. So I go through all of these in the book. Those are all positive.
Geoff Bennett:
You said you would not serve in a second Trump administration if he’s reelected. Why not?
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
Well, I will tell you, Geoff, I would serve in any administration where I think I could make a difference. I think now, with President Trump, I can’t make a difference with him. We just got kind of used up in that process.
And I think I was at peace with that. But I think the main theme, though, Geoff, is that I think we got a lot done in that first year that everybody was describing — remember, the word chaos was used in like almost every headline.
And, yes, it was chaotic. And it was less than harmonious, I guess I should say. But I think we worked through a lot of that tension and we put in place, I think, some really important and long overdue correctives to previous unwise policies.
Geoff Bennett:
H.R. McMaster. The book is “At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.” It is an intriguing read.
Thanks for being here.
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
Well…
Geoff Bennett:
We appreciate it.
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.):
Oh, thanks for the opportunity to be with you, Geoff. Thank you.