Former national security adviser paints picture of chaotic Trump White House in new book
H.R. McMaster is the latest Trump administration official to write a behind-the-scenes account of his time working for the former president.
WASHINGTON — A new book from one of Donald Trump’s former White House national security advisers depicts the Republican presidential nominee as an insecure personality whose need for flattery and approval made him an easy target of foreign adversaries bent on weakening the U.S.
With his book, H.R. McMaster is the latest in a long string of Trump administration officials to write a behind-the-scenes account, a literary genre that has been thriving amid Trump's undying grip on American politics.
Having served 13 months in Trump’s employ before his ouster in 2018, McMaster has written a book that is neither hagiographic nor entirely disdainful. He credits Trump with devising strategies to fight terrorism and recognizing that the U.S. needed to compete more fiercely with a rising China.
And he blames some of his old colleagues — notably former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former Defense Secretary James Mattis — for failing to steady a new president who’d come from the world of show business and real estate and had never held public office.
But McMaster doesn’t entirely absolve himself in the saga, either.
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