H.R. McMaster on Why the Trump Administration Was “At War with Ourselves”

Peter Robinson: What was it like to work with President Donald Trump Day in, day out in the White House down at Mar a Lago, traveling around the world? What was that like? General HR McMaster on Uncommon Knowledge now.

Peter Robinson: Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge, I'm Peter Robinson, a retired Lieutenant General in the United States army and a fellow at the Hoover Institution.

HR McMaster served from 2017 to 2018 as national security advisor to President Donald Trump. General McMaster graduated from West Point, earned a doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and played important roles in the Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq.

During the Gulf War, the tank unit he commanded engaged in perhaps the most decisive tank battle since the Second World War. The outcome, 28 Iraqi tanks destroyed, American casualties zero. A warrior, but also a historian. In 1997, General McMaster published Dereliction of Duty, Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the lies that led to Vietnam.

A book that remains essential reading in much of the officer corps today. In 2020, General McMaster published Battlegrounds The Fight to Defend the Free World. Which brings us to General McMaster's new book, published just this summer, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, HR, welcome.

H.R. McMaster: Peter, it's great to be with you, I'm a huge fan of Uncommon Knowledge. Thanks for having me.

Peter Robinson: You and I could blow kisses to each other.

Peter Robinson: But we just waste time At War with Ourselves, I'm quoting from your book, HR. A few months after I departed the White House, President Trump called me.

This is taking place in 2018. I miss you, General, the president said. Thank you, Mr. President, I replied, if I had the opportunity, I would do it again. We both knew, however, that we could never work together again. Why not?

H.R. McMaster: Well, Peter, you just get kind of used up with Donald Trump at some stage.

And I felt actually to do my duty effectively. And I tell this many anecdotes related to this in the book, that I often had to tell President Trump what he didn't want to hear, and I had to sort of try to guard his independence of judgment. And in doing so, I think that over time, alienated me from him.

And also our relationship was poisoned by those who really didn't appreciate my role in trying to give him multiple options. There were those around me, and there are many stories about this, who would prefer to try to manipulate decisions consistent with their agenda, not Donald Trump's agenda, but their agenda.

And so we got kind of used up in that whole maelstrom. And so we parted ways actually, amicably when I departed.

Peter Robinson: But you were done?

H.R. McMaster: But I was done, yeah, I was done.

Peter Robinson: All right, the job. Let's just take a moment. National Security Adviser, serves as the principal advisor to the president on national security and foreign policy and chairs the National Security Council.

The position of National Security Adviser was founded during the Eisenhower administration. So we're talking about a role in the government that goes back decades. And the National Security Council itself was founded during the Truman administration. Okay, all of that you'll find in a textbook. What does it mean in an age of nuclear proliferation, cyber warfare?

What should Americans know about the job you held as national security advisor and the National Security Council that you chaired to?

H.R. McMaster: Well, it's important to understand those historical roots because the National Security Council was formed really as a reaction to the failure of Pearl harbor, the intelligence failure associated with Pearl harbor.

And the lessons of World War II, that we had to integrate all elements of national power in an effort to mobilize our society to fight that cataclysmic and vitally important war for all humanity. And so the National Security Council institutionalizes some of those lessons, the need for coordination and integration across the government to provide the president with the best analysis, the best information.

And, I think, vitally important multiple options so the elected president can determine his or her policy agenda. And then the National Security Council, who are mostly members of the president's cabinet who are critical in the sensible implementation those decisions.

Peter Robinson: So could I, my historical insight onto this, which I put you, correct me on this if necessary.

I knew a man who's now been dead for some years, George Elsley, was a young man in the Truman White House. And he explained, in those days there's no email and there's no fax machine. And it was his job. Reports would come in from State Department to Pentagon and so forth and it was his job.

He'd have paper all over his desk. And it was his job to speed read things and decide what needed the president's attention. And before the National Security Council, you sat in the White House, and the president really couldn't be quite sure what was happening over at state or what was happening over at the Pentagon.

So the National Security Council was to bring, the aim of the National Security Council was at a minimum, to bring into the White House information for the president to see, correct?

H.R. McMaster: That's correct. So it started almost as an executive secretary function, and it really was invigorated after Truman under General Eisenhower, who brought Andrew Goodpaster, a fantastic officer who should, I think, be better known by Americans.

But really, Truman, he was very skeptical about the National Security Council in the beginning. Truman was until the Korean war, and then he realized it was vitally important. And then he held numerous national Security Council meetings during the war and saw the value of that organization to coordinate and integrate efforts.

Peter Robinson: So again, my little understanding of the history, which I think tracks with what you say in the book, but again, I'm asking you to sharpen it up for me. So it begins with, let's bring this information into the White House. And then Dwight David Eisenhower was a commander.

And one of the things I was always struck by when I was a young speechwriter in the Reagan White House, there were still Eisenhower guys around. And in the Reagan White House, the senior staff would meet at 7 o'clock and then they'd go back to their and hold secondary staff meetings with Ibana.

And the guys in the Eisenhower White House said, well, the man who presided at our 7 o'clock senior staff meeting was Dwight David Eisenhower. So Eisenhower uses this information to start making decisions, which is a slightly different thing. First, you keep the president informed of what's happening. It's a tool of coordination, and then under Eisenhower becomes a tool of decision making.

And the reason I'm being a little bit elaborate with this is because this sets up some of the strains that you write about in your book. State would like to run foreign policy.

H.R. McMaster: Yes.

Peter Robinson: Defense would like to run defense. And there's HR over there in the old executive office building, and we don't quite know what the heck he thinks he's doing, except that somehow or other information goes in there and orders come out for us, and we don't like that.

Roughly.

H.R. McMaster: Well, what I'm getting at is there's an institutional tension. There's tension there.

Peter Robinson: Okay.

H.R. McMaster: And what's unique about the position of the national security advisor is the national security advisor is the only person who has the president as his, or her only client in the area of national security and in the area of foreign policy.

The other cabinet officials, they have other constituencies, their own departments, maybe agendas within their own departments, maybe some significant bureaucratic inertia associated with-

Peter Robinson: Imagine that.

H.R. McMaster: Pre-existing policies. So there is a natural tension there I try to allay that this is a big part of the story of the book.

Peter Robinson: I wanna spend another moment or two on the beginnings.

H.R. McMaster: Right?

Peter Robinson: It's a staff job.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

Peter Robinson: You were a commander.

H.R. McMaster: Right?

Peter Robinson: Commanders don't typically like staff jobs.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

Peter Robinson: Why did you consider this one?

H.R. McMaster: Well, as Epictetus said, this is what is most important to play well, the role assigned you, right and so I knew that was my role.

My role was not to run foreign policy my role was not to make decisions my role was not to centralize decision making I realized that the decision-maker is the president. Nobody elected me, actually, nobody elected the secretaries of defense or state either.

Peter Robinson: Okay?

H.R. McMaster: So I saw my role as helping the president determine his foreign policy and national security agenda and then assisting with the sensible implementation of his decisions.

Peter Robinson: Okay, one more piece of context as you begin and that piece of context involves Michael Flynn, Michael Flynn, like you, three stars, United States army, retired, takes over his national security advisor, first national security advisor, and lasts a glorious 22 days.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

Peter Robinson: He's resigned over a controversy on information he may or may not have given to the Russian ambassador.

H.R. McMaster: He was railroaded.

Peter Robinson: Exactly I was about to say, I think it's very clear now that he's been completely exonerated.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

Peter Robinson: But the fact is, you replaced a man.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

Peter Robinson: Who had lasted 22 days what did you, walking into that job, intend to do?

H.R. McMaster: What I wanted to do is stabilize the team and do the best job for the president and as you know from your service in the White House, it can be a very turbulent period in the transition of administrations alone. Now you have the added level of complexity of a very fast change of a national security advisor.

So what I wanted to do is to make sure the president was getting what he needed, to determine his foreign policy and national security agenda there's a lot of work to do there. And as I mentioned in the book, we had to put into place, in many cases, 180 degree changes to what were, I think, destructive foreign policies under the Obama administration.

A lot of work to do no time for drama but there had been a lot of drama so what I was trying to do was stabilize the team, make sure everybody understood the mission of the National Security Council staff. That's everybody on the national security staff itself but also I wanted to get around and see all the cabinet secretaries, all the principals on the National Security Council principles committee, and forge a very effective working relationship to get the president best analysis, best advice, and multiple options.

Peter Robinson: Okay so, again, I'm pushing a little bit here this is all fascinating to me because a military man serving the country, and yet you've got people who are colleagues.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

Peter Robinson: Okay so there's a difference between what you've said so far you almost sound as though you're a butler and you just bring him on a silver solver you bring him options.

And he says, I'll have options I'll have this kind of tea and you say, very good, sir, and you take it but that's not quite the way it happens.

H.R. McMaster: No, it's not the way it happens.

Peter Robinson: And because you're also, as a matter of statute, the principal advisor.

H.R. McMaster: Yes.

Peter Robinson: So you're permitted, indeed required, to develop opinions of your own to advise him correctly on okay, so take us through a case study. Donald Trump's instincts were that the war in Afghanistan, which by the time he got to it, had lasted for a decade and a half and had cost hundreds of billions of dollars, was just going nowhere and he wanted out.

H.R. McMaster: Right?

Peter Robinson: How did you handle that?

H.R. McMaster: Well, the first thing you have to do, you listen to the president right nobody I didn't get elected nobody else got elected you have to listen to the elected president. And then what I would tell the president is, I share your frustrations I agree with your frustrations wanted to do was to give him multiple options.

But to do that, I think you have to first lay a solid foundation for decision making by having a common understanding of the nature of the challenge that we're facing, what is at stake. President Trump wanted to know, why do we care about this? Why do the American people care about this?

So what we did is we put into place what we called a principal small group framing session to apply design, thinking and problem framing to these first order national security challenges, is what we called them. And we put them all in the form of a problem statement we convened the principles around a five page paper that framed this for the president.

And I would bring that framing to him before I asked him to make a decision let's come to a common understanding of what the nature of the challenge is.

Peter Robinson: So Ajar well what that sounds like to me what it feels like in your book, you had a particular problem, and you're very respectful of the president, even when you get a angry about those circumstances.

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely.

Peter Robinson: By the way, this is just for viewers the book is fascinating, and it is very clear that you got very angry at a number of points but it is respectful of the president, even of those people who become antagonists. And it is overall, it's the tone of a man who is attempting to analyze his experience, to offer it to Americans for the future that's the tone the overall tone of the book is, here's what happened to me.

Let me tell you about it as calmly and analytically as I can, because there's another generation that's got to carry this on. Okay so granted all that, he didn't know anything. Now I don't mean to sound as though I'm denigrating Donald Trump I don't know how to get an office building built in New York.

He knew how to do that. I don't know how to run casinos in New Jersey, he did know how to do that. But he didn't know why we were in Afghanistan the first he didn't know, so your first job is to provide a kind of rudimentary remedial education.

H.R. McMaster: Well, actually, he knew a lot he's not an incurious person he's not familiar with history, and he's given to certain impulses, and he's a disruptive personality. I'll tell you, that was very positive in many cases because he was right about a lot of what had become sort of a routine approach to some of the most significant challenges we faced.

So, for example, he thinks it's a bad idea that we should underwrite our own demise with investments in China, for example, while China is weaponizing its status, mercantilist economy against us right. So he, because of him questioning would have become conventional wisdom, right that China having been welcomed into the international order, as China prospects prospered, it would liberalize its economy and liberalize its form of governance he didn't believe that.

Peter Robinson: So Donald Trump shows up willing to break furniture and part of HR is thinking, yeah, because there's a lot of furniture that really should be broken.

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely and to help him understand better how to break the furniture effectively and put something in its place right so it's not just about disrupting.

It's about putting into place policies and approaches that will advance American interests, that will strengthen our security and foster prosperity and extend our influence in the world that's what I was trying to help them do.

Peter Robinson: Okay, we'll return to Afghanistan in a moment, but let's get to so the subject.

The title of the book is At War with Ourselves. And you refer a number of times to the circular firing squad inside the White House, instead of helping each other out there's a lot of backbiting and interference, okay. So you've got two themes here. One, of course, is the person, the character and temperament of Donald Trump himself, and we'll come back to that.

He's running for president again. Of course, we'll come back to that. But the other theme here is the backbiting, the self promotion, the leaking to the press, the dealings in bad faith among Trump's own staff and cabinet. Let's start with the staff. Reince Priebus, the chief of staff until Trump fired him in July 2017, Steve Bannon, now serving four months for contempt of Congress.

Steve Bannon, who held the title chief strategist and senior counselor until leaving the White House in August 2018, at war with ourselves. Quote, Bannon, Priebus, and others employed the same principal tactic as Iago, close quote. Iago is the villain, and he is a very darkly drawn villain in Shakespeare, in Othello.

Explain.

H.R. McMaster: Well, what they would do, to use the Shakespearean phrase, is poison his ear. Poison the president's ear with innuendo, with all kinds of false reports of disloyalty and so forth, because what they wanted to do is solidify their influence with Donald Trump. And the best way to do that would be to kind of play to his insecurities, his sense of beleaguerment associated with the Mueller investigation, for example.

And so they wanted to create this kind of almost bunker mentality, and they convinced the president, hey, we're the two reliable people in the bunker with you.

Peter Robinson: We're your only guys.

H.R. McMaster: We're your only guys. And so when I was advocating for providing the president with options, not trying to manipulate him into the decisions associated with maybe Steve Bannon's agenda, there was a lot of friction there.

And what they decided to do at one point, Bannon in particular, was to try to essentially kneecap me and just get me out of the picture.

Peter Robinson: Okay, so this is tricky material, because how did they get in the White House? The President of the United States absolutely put them there.

Why did he put them there? I can't read Donald Trump's mind, but at least in part because they represented a part of his governing coalition.

H.R. McMaster: Sure.

Peter Robinson: You refer to the alt-right, and I think that's the term that's generally popular.

H.R. McMaster: I'm not super enthusiastic about any of these labels.

Peter Robinson: Yeah, right. You've got to get it. But they had a certain kind of legitimacy in that White House. They were there because the chief executive wanted them there. And you say to yourself, I got to deal with these guys up to a point. How do you draw the lines at which-

H.R. McMaster: Well, yeah, the line that I draw-

Peter Robinson: You see what I'm saying?

H.R. McMaster: I can take any kind of disparagement, I can take any kind of leak. I mean, it doesn't matter to me. That's noise to me. When they begin to affect policy, when they begin to affect national security, when they begin to affect, really, the president's job in a way that's negative, that's when I became concerned about it.

And I'll tell you, Peters, this is into the book. There are many instances where I tried to foster a working relationship with them. At one point, I invited Steve Bannon to dinner, and then he texted me, I'm sorry, I'm really busy. I'm like, okay, well, I'm national security advisor, I don't know what your portfolio is, Matt.

I guess he was clearly blowing me off. But I tried. But what they would rather do, I think, is to continue to play these games, power games. And I just didn't play those games. I just tried to focus on my responsibility to the president. When they began to impinge on decisions, when they began to try to manipulate the president to make premature decisions or decisions that might cut against our national interests, that's when I became, concerned about their tactics and their approach.

Peter Robinson: All right, they both end up leaving the cabinet. This is serious. These are people who hold statutory offices, once again, at war with ourselves. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seems to have concluded that Trump was an emergency, and that anyone at betting him was an adversary.

That means you because you were trying to help the guy. While Bannon had viewed my efforts to give Trump options as constraining the president from the alt right agenda, Madison Tillerson viewed my efforts as enabling a president who was a danger to the Constitution. Explain that.

H.R. McMaster: So I think, essentially-

Peter Robinson: By the way, let's just stipulate..

H.R. McMaster: Right.

Peter Robinson: This is tricky for both of us. In part, I've never met Rick Tillerson. You know both of these men. But Jim Mattis is a colleague of ours at the Hoover Institution. And I think it's fair to say that although the two of you have had big boy disagreements, you view yourselves as friend.

I certainly view Jim as a very good friend.

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely.

Peter Robinson: But you had a disability professional disagreement.

H.R. McMaster: I have respect both of those gentlemen.

Peter Robinson: Okay.

H.R. McMaster: And so I think people are motivated in three fundamentally different ways in the White House.

Peter Robinson: And I'd be administration.

H.R. McMaster: What you're in the administration, any administration.

Peter Robinson: In other words, you're including the cabinet.

H.R. McMaster: I wonder if this resonates with your experience in the White House. So group a are people who are there to help the elected president determine his own agenda, right. And they're there to give best analysis, a wide range of perspectives and to develop multiple options for the president to make his choice, because he's the one who got elected then.

Peter Robinson: And HR McMaster is captain of Group A.

H.R. McMaster: I think I'm in Group A. And I think, I think Group B are those who are not interested in giving the president options, not interested in giving him a wide range of views, because what they want to do is they want to manipulate decisions consistent with their own agenda.

That's where they came into the White House. They viewed Donald Trump as a cipher, right? Somebody who they could use for their own agenda. The third group of people are those who viewed the president as a danger and wanted to, again, limit the information that he got, limit the options, because they saw it as their job to protect the country and the world from, from Donald Trump.

And so based on what, your motivation, that would determine kind of your behavior and created natural tension between me and those who fell into the other two groups. And so that's how I've sort of analyzed it in retrospect, I think these groups exist in any administration. But I think, like everything with Donald Trump, it's just amplified to maybe a hot,

Peter Robinson: You get this frustration in you and Jim. For military men, we're one of the principal doctrines is unity of command. We may fight things out, but the commander says, go and we go.

H.R. McMaster: Sure.

Peter Robinson: And in a White House with as much backbiting and as many factions as the Donald Trump administration, it's the strangest thing, because who, where could you find greater unity of command than on the staff of the chief executive?

But in fact, it doesn't exist. Is that correct?

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, I think that's correct. And then also, you have other tasks-

Peter Robinson: So you're temperamentally unprepared for it as a military man.

H.R. McMaster: Well, you know, I'll tell you, I've worked in some complex environments, you know, with, working with foreign partners and who have different agendas.

I've had to command multi, I've had the privilege of, privilege of commanding multinational civil military task forces in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. So I was used to that. I was used to trying to lead and really, in this case, coordinate really, efforts and build a team. And I'll tell you, despite all this friction, Peter, and this is friction associated with the question you asked earlier, it has a lot to do with just what is your understanding of the role of the national security advisor?

What is the natural tension between that role and the role of cabinet officials. Then you have the added dimension of Donald Trump, and the degree to which Donald Trump creates these sort of other motivations. And there are those who come in with their own agenda, so it's a very complicated situation.

But I think the story generally is really my effort to try to transcend that and to do the best job I could for the president. And I do think that we succeeded, in effecting some fundamental and long overdue shifts in policy. So anyway, my attitude was, hey, bring it on, I've been in real combat, Peter.

And Bannon, he used to love to use a war metaphor and a battle metaphor for everything, but I was not really concerned by any of this, I mean, I thought, okay, just bring it on, is that all you have?

Peter Robinson: Let tank shells whistling past you?

H.R. McMaster: Well, let's get the mission done.

Peter Robinson: I want to get back to the president, and then we'll come to Afghanistan, what I'd like to do is talk until through lunchtime, if you don't mind. But you mentioned that early on, you went across the street in Washington to the office of Brent Scowcroft, who had served as national security advisor to President George HW Bush and had held a number of positions, national security staff, Pentagon and so forth, during the Reagan administration.

And Brent Scowcroft said, you think you've got a bat? And here's a quotation from at war with ourselves, Scowcroft described Reagan's White House while James A Baker was chief of staff, that's the first term, as a witches' brew of intrigue, elbows and separate agendas, close quote. As it happens I was there, right?

H.R. McMaster: I think you must have been six years old, Peter. I can't believe you're in the right.

Peter Robinson: I can confirm that it was a witch's brew.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

Peter Robinson: Let me give you my thinking on that, and then, because I think this, in a way, it does illustrate.

H.R. McMaster: And remember Poindexter, too, who was national security advisor.

Peter Robinson: Yeah, Poindexter, second term.

H.R. McMaster: Second term-

Peter Robinson: Right.

H.R. McMaster: But the title “At War With Ourselves comes” from him telling me, we were at war with ourselves in this earlier period, he was referring to the earlier period.

Peter Robinson: Okay, So you've got Jim Baker and Mike Deaver, essentially in an alliance, you've got Ed Meese, who's more conservative, and then you've got Bill Clark as national security advisor, and he's overseeing a staff that doesn't have that much confidence in him, that includes Bud McFarlane. And you get this first term, and because I believe, because of this jostling, that first term is extremely creative.

H.R. McMaster: Right.

Peter Robinson: NSCC 75, which lays out. Which lays out,

H.R. McMaster: Which I read when I took over and you read.

Peter Robinson: Refer to here the Strategic Defense Initiative, which is a research program, and the president didn't.

H.R. McMaster: That looks pretty darn relevant now.

Peter Robinson: It looks relevant now and the way, that worked was the president didn't trust the speech writing office, he wanted that very close hold, so he had Bill Clark, my source on this is Bill Clark.

H.R. McMaster: Right.

Peter Robinson: All these people are dead, so you're just gonna have to take my word for it. But Bill Clark had bud McFarlane drafted and when Bud McFarlane recognized it wasn't just an exercise, it was actually gonna be inserted in a speech from the Oval Office, he begged Bill Clark to take it out.

And the president went ahead with it anyway and just informed the secretary of state and secretary of defense a couple of hours beforehand, they were not consulted, they were informed. So this loose jointedness, the Westminster address of 1981, the evil empire address of 1983, the Berlin Wall address, which I wrote of 1987, Reagan's senior staff tried to stop all three of those, but because there was enough chaos in the White House, you could get things to the president around it was creative.

Why? Because the man at the center of it all was Ronald Reagan, and he knew what he was doing.

H.R. McMaster: All right.

Peter Robinson: So is that the difference? The chaos in your White House is more unsettling, because the president himself has a less settled view.

H.R. McMaster: I would say, what I would say.

Peter Robinson: You're not gonna go for that, though.

H.R. McMaster: No, I'm not gonna go for that. No, what I would say is, the president had settled views on a lot of issues, and he was dead right about them. And so what I was trying to do was provide him with multiple options, again, I used the title, one of the chapters is guarding his independence of judgment, I saw that as my role.

And I think-

Peter Robinson: And it would literally end up with a piece of paper with option A, option B, option C, and you talk these through with him, correct?

H.R. McMaster: Yes, and not just me, but sometimes in a small group format in the Oval office or in the back dining room or a formal NSC meeting, where he made a series of very important decisions on policies from 180 degree switch to our Cuba policy, for example.

180 degree switch to our approach toward Venezuela. How about toward Iran and the Iran strategy, which was a radical shift and an overdue corrective to the unwise policies of the Obama years. So we put all of these in place in a very formal way with him. The South Asia strategy which you mentioned, which involved the war in Afghanistan, that was done at Camp David, in a setting that was conducive to the kind of deliberations that you would want to have, over decisions that involve life and death in wartime.

And he heard from all of his cabinet, so I would.

Peter Robinson: We need to dwell on that one for just a moment, because that actually is almost a case study of the way it ought to work.

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely.

Peter Robinson: You get strong people who know a lot about their fields, and you go up to Camp David and you fight it out in front of the chief executive.

H.R. McMaster: Sure.

Peter Robinson: And he makes the decision at the end, and everybody says, got it correct?

H.R. McMaster: And you know what?

Peter Robinson: It worked that way, it doesn't sound like chaos, does it?

H.R. McMaster: No, and my editor wanted chaos in the title, I don't want chaos in the title, that's the conventional wisdom.

And of course, it was chaotic, and of course, it was at a certain level. And you're mentioning all the kind of the frictions and interpersonal difficulties. But I think we succeeded in that first year, I can't really talk to definitively about what happened after that, in transcending that chaos and getting the president best advice.

And in that first three weeks on the job, I talked to every living former national security adviser.

Peter Robinson: Including Henry Kissinger?

H.R. McMaster: Including Henry Kissinger. And I tried to understand my role and then play that role for the president. I think what was difficult is at times, President Trump maybe didn't really fully understand my role and I mentioned this in the book.

I wish I'd spent more time with him at the very beginning saying, hey, this is my role relative, to your secretaries of state defense.

Peter Robinson: And let's be explicit one more time about Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson. What did the secretary of defense and what did the secretary of state want you to do?

H.R. McMaster: What they wanted me to do, is to help them control Donald Trump, I think. And so I was trying to foster collaboration, to give him options they want to control. And there was a fundamental tension, between those goals of collaboration and control.

Peter Robinson: Okay, now to the man himself, although, of course, a portrait of Donald Trump emerges from everything you say here, At War With Ourselves.

I saw in Trump traits similar to those in Lyndon Johnson. And later you write of a visit to California during which you found yourself contrasting Trump with Reagan, the differences between the two presidents who came into office with similar agendas, including tax cuts, deregulation, increased military spending. Whereas Stark has the contrast between Reagan's rustic ranch and Trump's lavish Mar a Lago.

Donald Trump and LBJ, Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan, right? Explain this.

H.R. McMaster: So, Lyndon Johnson had some profound insecurities, especially the way he came into office. And I, I think.

Peter Robinson: After an assassination.

H.R. McMaster: After assassination in November 1963, and so Johnson, especially in the 64 period, and, I wrote a book about this.

And I'll tell you, I mean, so much of whatever ability I had to do this job came from history, right? And my ability to be kinda stoic in the job and understand that the frictions I was encountering, these were not unprecedented, right? So I really was grateful for the gift that the United States Army gave me, which was to study history and to read-

Peter Robinson: George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, these men put up with a lot.

Peter Robinson: They put up with a lot, right?

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely. But Johnson was insecure for a number of reasons, including that he was really preoccupied with trying to get elected in his own right in 1964. And then he also had a sense of beleaguerment around him by the press, much like President Trump.

President Trump, I think, has his own insecurities, I'm not a psychologist, but he felt beleaguered by the false Russiagate collusion claims and the Mar-a-Lago investigation. And so, these insecurities and this sense of beleaguerment allowed people to kinda manipulate both presidents, right? Johnson was very distrustful of those around him, so was Trump.

So if somebody wants to kneecap me or somebody else, label them a globalist or say that they're not supporting the president's agenda or they're disloyal, or they called him a name or, ridiculous claims, right? All of those in connection with me, he actually had a bit of a vulnerability there, because of that sense of beleaguerment.

So I think that was kind of a similarity there between those two presidents. And then with Reagan, I really talk about them both being extraordinary communicators in the relatively new media of television for Reagan, and social media for Trump. And while Trump, I would say, was not maybe as elegant in his form of communication as Reagan was, and he didn't-

Peter Robinson: He got the points across.

H.R. McMaster: He got the points across, but also, if you look at his speeches, I think they're pretty darn good.

Peter Robinson: Yes, his speeches are underappreciated.

H.R. McMaster: They're underappreciated. But there are big differences between the two of them as well, obviously. And I think Reagan had the self deprecating sense of humor, I talk about how important humor is in leadership, right?

And Trump has a sense of humor, I mean, some of the nicknames and everything else, you have to admit they're kind of funny, but not really a self deprecating sense of humor. And I think where Reagan was sort of, he really understood kind of the ethic of service.

It's more maybe about Trump, that's not a revelation, right?

Peter Robinson: Right.

H.R. McMaster: And so, I try to compare and contrast those presidents as a way to get at the subject of presidential character, and what are the traits we ought to look for in any presidential candidate.

Peter Robinson: If I may say so, you may have noticed this, HR, that the man is running for president again.

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely.

Peter Robinson: And your book represents a handbook for the serious reader who wants a dispassionate account according to which you can judge this man, in my opinion.

H.R. McMaster: I hope it's that. This is not an attack on Donald Trump, and this is not by Joe Biden or any.

Peter Robinson: Right, absolutely.

H.R. McMaster: Okay, absolutely, so what I hope to do in this book is to give readers my perspective on, I think, what was a pivotal year in American history, for readers to understand better what we've been discussing. What the heck is the National Security Council staff?

What is the role of a national security advisor? What does an effective national security decision-making process look like? What are some of the frictions you encounter in terms of personalities and relationships and roles and responsibilities, and how do you overcome those or try to overcome those? And then, of course, to get at this issue of presidential character as well.

Peter Robinson: Okay, can I, I wanna stick with Donald Trump for just another moment or two here and then kind of get to larger lessons. But there's a fascinating passage in which you and Stephen Miller, a member of the Trump circle, are working on a speech that the president is about to deliver to the United Nations.

And you become reflective in this passage, Miller and I had labored to reconcile contradictions in Trump's worldview. Some of these were confounding. And then you go on to list half a dozen paradoxes or contradictions in Trump's views. Let me just read a couple. Trump believed that the United States was a force for good in the world, but he often manifested moral equivalence.

H.R. McMaster: So, Trump does believe America is a force for good in the world, but he then has this moral equivalence where he turns maybe sometimes a blind eye to some of the abuses of power. And, I would say, criminal activity on the part of Putin, for example. And I used a quote from him in 2016, where he said, we have killers too, and that sort of thing.

So I think that whereas Reagan was really elegant in his kind of portrayal of America as a city on the hill, right? And whereas Trump at times engages in moral equivalence in a way that confuses maybe international audiences about how he views America itself. And you have also this narrative of all the negativity, the maladies in our society, and oftentimes those are not balanced with an optimistic view of the future, as Reagan did.

Peter Robinson: He was viscerally, I'm quoting you again, he was viscerally opposed to communist and socialist dictatorships but was ambivalent at best about the dictators of Russia and China.

H.R. McMaster: Right, right.

Peter Robinson: He hated those systems, but he sort of admired those strong guys.

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely, yeah.

Peter Robinson: And that comes from what, that comes from growing up in Queens, that comes from New York Real Estate, is it tough world?

And the strong men who he admires that, where does this come from?

H.R. McMaster: I think in some ways he wanted to be viewed as people view them, as strong leaders. And I quote, actually, President Trump on this later in the booklll where I talk about, he said, sometimes I have problems with people who are our friends.

But our adversaries, if they're tough guys, I kinda get along with them well. Somebody will have to explain that to me someday, it's what he said.

Peter Robinson: Okay, so, HR, you said, he takes office, this is the Russia hoax thing.

H.R. McMaster: Right.

Peter Robinson: He takes office and there's this Russia, Russia, Russia, as he describes it, And we now know that it begins as a dirty trick in the Hillary Clinton campaign.

H.R. McMaster: These are the findings of the Department of Justice.

Peter Robinson: Correct.

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely.

Peter Robinson: We now know that the press pursued a story that was bunk, he was right that it was fake news. He was right that he was being made a victim of the deep state.

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely.

Peter Robinson: We now know that the Federal Bureau of Investigation dummied up requests for the FISA Court, that there was a grotesque abuse of power taking place all around him, that he was the target. That Robert Mueller, the investigation ties up official Washington for two years, dominates the news, and then it presents its findings and it's got nothing on him.

There was no Russian collusion whatsoever. So here's the question, suppose the Clinton campaign hadn't pulled dirty tricks. Suppose that Donald Trump's election as president had been accepted, that even people who disagreed with him reposed a little faith in the Constitution, took the historical view, you win some, you lose some.

That side gets the chance to enact its agenda for four years at a time, we win back. This is a game, we all learn to live with each other across decades. Suppose the Democrats, the intel community, and journalists had Just given the guy a fair shake, what would have been different?

H.R. McMaster: I think the environment would have been completely different, and I think he would have been much more secure in his ability to discharge his duties. He wouldn't have had maybe that severe sense of beleaguerment. The press would never like him or be fair to him.

Peter Robinson: I mean, honestly, if you're sitting in the Oval Office and you realize you can't trust the FBI, and the next thing, the man who comes through the door is HMR McMaster, you look up at HR and say, wait a minute, he's been in Washington for years.

How do I know I can trust him? In other words, it poisons everything.

H.R. McMaster: Actually, Peter, that was my only assignment in Washington across my entire career, was his national security advisor. I had never-

Peter Robinson: Only non-military.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, yeah.

Peter Robinson: I got it.

H.R. McMaster: No, I had never even been assigned to the Pentagon.

So I had never, never lived in Washington in my entire career.

Peter Robinson: Congratulations. Okay.

H.R. McMaster: So I think there was a sense of him distrusting not just the Department of Justice or FBI, but that carried over to the entire intelligence community as well. And I think that this really-

Peter Robinson: That is outrageous what they did, because the intel community, if Congress passes a budget on some domestic issue, you get hearings, you get to see the amount of money being spent. Intel, the actual budget of the CIA is secret. It relies entirely on trust among officeholders and among the public.

And they violated that trust again and again and again. Am I wrong about that?

H.R. McMaster: Well, I don't think in the intelligence agencies, it was the same kind of egregious misconduct as there was in the FBI, for example. But for-

Peter Robinson: Distinctions matter.

H.R. McMaster: But I was just talking from Donald Trump's perspective, there was a great deal of a lot of distrust. Enough distrust to go around.

Peter Robinson: Enough to go around.

H.R. McMaster: To go around, yeah. And so I think his whole mentality would have been different. This is one of the things I'm concerned about, too, Peter, with whatever the outcome of this election is, is that, really, January 6th was terrible.

I think the president encouraging that assault on the Capitol was terrible, and I criticize him for that. But we have to also remember, not that these are equivalent cases, but there were election deniers in 2016, 2017. Remember the Not My President movement, then the declarations saying that this guy is not a legitimate president from Nancy Pelosi and others.

So I think what we have to stop doing in both political parties is compromising our confidence in our democratic institutions and processes to score partisan political points. Both parties are guilty of that, and we just need to stop.

Peter Robinson: HR, a couple of pairs of quotations. Last questions here are about Donald Trump, of course, and a couple of questions about you, but I'd like to begin with a couple of pairs of quotations.

Here's columnist Mark Thiessen in the Washington Post in 2020, what if we've turned off our TVs and stopped looking at Twitter and looked at what he's done? This is before COVID hits, with the sound off, Trump is one of the greatest conservative presidents in modern American history, close quote.

Here's former vice president Dick Cheney. In our nation's 246-year history, there has never been an individual who posed a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. Here's another pair, political consultant Roger Stone. Roger knows politics, he worked with Nixon and Reagan, quote, the only-

H.R. McMaster: He also came out against me very aggressively.

Peter Robinson: He would have been-

H.R. McMaster: Other lunatics like Alex Jones, yeah, right.

Peter Robinson: Okay.

Peter Robinson: You just called a friend a lunatic, but Roger would be pleased with it, so I won't bother.

Peter Robinson: Political consultant Roger Stone. The only thing Trump is guilty of is being the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln, close quote.

That's preposterous. Sorry, that's my view. We'll see what the Economist magazine Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024, close quote. Why does this man have this effect on people?

H.R. McMaster: Well, I think he enjoys-

Peter Robinson: Both sides of this are preposterous, aren't they?

H.R. McMaster: No, I mean, I think hopefully what my book does is reconcile all those perspectives, because I do say it's the good, the bad, and the ugly of that year.

And I do try to place Trump's four years, his four-year presidency in the context of the eight Obama years that preceded it and the four, going on four Biden years that-

Peter Robinson: Is he a threat to democracy? Is he the greatest danger of the world in 2024?

H.R. McMaster: No, he's not the greatest danger in the world.

I think what happens is Donald Trump is inflammatory, right? He's offensive to people. And what he does is he actually elicits a reaction to him that is oftentimes more destructive than anything he says or does himself. And so what I’m really concerned about is this kind of vortex, these centripetal forces that we unleash based on the interaction of Trump and his most loyal followers and the people who hate him the most.

And I wish that Donald Trump could get to the politics of addition. I wish he could, instead of doubling down on his most loyal base, that he could extend that base more and appeal to more Americans.

Peter Robinson: Did you ever talk politics like this with him?

H.R. McMaster: I talked to him in an international context about this.

And especially I've got stories in here about NATO, his skepticism about NATO, the Paris Accord and so forth. And what I would try to say is, you can pursue your agenda in a way that can bring more people with you, and then we can have a bigger impact as a result, and we can make more rapid progress toward our goals and objectives.

Peter Robinson: Summing up here, how did Donald Trump do, and how did HR McMaster do? First, Donald Trump “At War With Ourselves”. Despite the chaos in the White House, Trump administered long-overdue correctives to unwise policies. Results included a fundamental shift in national security and new policies toward China, Russia, North Korea, Iran.

You’ve talked about Iran here already. Venezuela, Cuba. That's pretty impressive.

H.R. McMaster: Impressive, yeah. All within one year.

Peter Robinson: All within one year. And yet you go on to accuse Trump of inconsistency, taking one thing with another. Did Donald Trump do his job, do the job of the president of the United States in foreign policy?

Did he protect the republic?

H.R. McMaster: I think that was his motivation. I mean, I don’t think he set out in any way to compromise our security. But whereas he could make very tough decisions, oftentimes he would make decisions that went against his predilections. Once he heard different views and learned more about a subject, oftentimes he found it difficult to keep that decision, to hang on to that decision.

Especially when faced with criticism from his political base, his most stalwart supporters, who I think at times thought of him as an easy mark, somebody who they could say, this makes you look weak or you're abandoning your base if you do this. So I think that was the real limitation in his ability to effect presidential command, to use Peter Robbins’s phrase, was his difficulty in hanging on to a tough decision.

In the book, what I do is I give him, I give him credit, due credit for making really tough decisions, but also I criticize him for going back on some of those decisions, especially those that had clear consequences to cut against our vital interests.

Peter Robinson: All right, now to evaluate the performance of Herbert Raymond McMaster, let's begin with your 1995 appearance on Firing Line with Bill Buckley.

Bill Buckley: We talked, in 1964, you're telling me that the Joint Chiefs estimated we needed 500,000 men to correct the situation?

H.R. McMaster: Yes.

Bill Buckley: And you think that he was obliged to pass along that estimate to the American people?

H.R. McMaster: Well, he was obliged by law to give his best, the Joint Chiefs were, to give their best military advice to the president, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council.

They failed to do that because what the Joint Chiefs of Staff do in this period is they compromise principles for expediency themselves.

Peter Robinson: So, HR, there you are talking with Bill Buckley about your book, Dereliction of Duty. Principle and expediency, the duty of the soldier when dealing with civilian authorities, with politicians.

So, skilled professionals, Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson, the man who succeeded you as national security adviser, John Bolton, all came, they may want to, well, they're on their own. They can correct me anytime they want to, I hereby extend an invitation to all three of them to this show.

But, it seems to me fair to say that they all concluded that they knew better than Trump. They knew policy better than Trump, they knew what was right for the country in foreign affairs better than Trump. And they all decided it was their duty, their principal duty, to protect the rest of us from Trump's inexperience and unpredictability.

And HR McMaster made a different decision, any regrets?

H.R. McMaster: No regrets at all, no regrets at all, I mean, I'll tell you, Peter, did you see that clip? Gosh, it was funny, I mean, I went into the job on my first day thinking, this is really a surreal circumstance here, to be walking into the office of the National Security Advisor in the west wing of the White House, and now being responsible for the national security decision-making process I criticized from the perspective as a historian.

So, I wrote down five things that I would not make sure that I did not make the same mistakes, right? And the first is, we would take more time thinking about the nature of the challenges we're facing and not rush into action. The second thing that we would do is we establish clear goals and objectives, right?

There were no clear goals and objectives and I did this with President Trump. Before we ever talked about what we were gonna do, I made sure that these were his goals and objectives, what he wanted to achieve. The third thing that we would do, is we would provide him with multiple options so that he actually had a say in his own-

Peter Robinson: You were never gonna put him in a box?

H.R. McMaster: Never gonna put him in a box. The fourth thing is I would never hold anything back from him even if I knew I was telling him what he didn't want to hear, and it might limit my influence.

Advisors, during the period in which Vietnam became an American war, they concluded that I have to tell Lyndon Johnson what he wants to hear, otherwise, it will diminish my influence with him. Well, what the hell good is your influence anyway? And then the final lesson was to try to insulate national security decision-making from partisan political concerns.

Now, there are gonna be people who have voices about the partisan kind of political ramifications of decisions, and they're gonna have a natural conduit to the president. But, in the development of those options, I didn't want them infected by how is this gonna play from a partisan perspective.

And I think we succeeded, maybe I made some new mistakes, but I didn't make those five mistakes.

Peter Robinson: You didn't make those five.

H.R. McMaster: Those five mistakes?

Peter Robinson: Okay, so back to Trump with one last question and back to you with what I promise will be the last question.

Here he is running for president again, a lot can happen between now and election day in November. He may win, this is not a crazy idea. And what could voters reasonably expect in a second Trump administration?

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, Peter, I mean, I really don't know, I mean, I hope,

Peter Robinson: This is just not your portfolio.

H.R. McMaster: No, I think what I do in the book is I explain that you could get any number of Donald Trumps, right? And I think if he does get elected, we all hope its the Donald Trump whos most effective for the country. And that's somebody who doesn't care about retribution, who cares about his duty.

It's somebody who understands that he has authorities under Article Two of the Constitution that are balanced by those that exist in Article One and Article Three. It's somebody who I think leans more toward the peace through strength, Reagan's approach to the world rather than succumbs to this sort of impulse to retrench under the belief that that's good for American security.

So, all of this kind of dissonance I describe in the book, he could go either way, right? And a lot of that will depend, I think, on who he has as his advisors. And in those three categories we talked about, I hope they're in category one, right? Because if he gets elected, dammit, he got elected!

So, those who serve him should be there to help him determine his own agenda, right, and fulfill his duties under the Constitution.

Peter Robinson: What we all need is a little more faith in the constitution of the United States, the system will work itself out.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, we have to stop tearing down our confidence in our institutions, we have to bolster our confidence and reform these constitutions, I mean, reform these institutions in a way that restores our faith and confidence.

And I hope that if Donald Trump is elected, that he comes in with that agenda, not to remake everything or tear everything down in this sort of approach that also sounds kinda like the new left or postcolonial, postmodernist approach. I think what we really need to do is do the hard work of restoring the American people's confidence in our government.

Peter Robinson: All right, last question, I'm gonna end with the same quotation I used to open, but ask a slightly different question about it. At war with ourselves, a few months after I departed the White House, President Trump called me. I miss you, general, the president said. Thank you, Mr. President, I replied, if I had the opportunity, I would do it again, close quote.

You knew he'd never invite you back, but I know you well enough to know that when you said, if I had the opportunity, I'd do it again, you meant it. Endless hours, countless frustrations, a staff job, which is torture in itself to a man who's used to command.

Constant backbiting, politics of every description, and at the center of it all, a very, very difficult chief executive. And yet you found it all worthwhile, why?

H.R. McMaster: Well, I hope that one of the themes in the book is gratitude, gratitude for the opportunity to serve. And, that is a fantastic job, national security advisor, it really is.

And you can have a positive influence on the course of the nation and the nation's security and prosperity and that is a tremendous privilege and I hope another theme that comes out through the book. I worked with some fantastic people, Peter, I mean, these were really dedicated, talented people.

Some of them are colleagues now at Hoover, Matt Pottinger, for example. I mean, the National Security Council staff, I think, was running extremely well after my first few months and doing a good job for the president. I think maybe the president didn't always appreciate that because we were always getting disparaged by those who wanted to sort of drive a wedge between him and me and the NSC staff broadly.

But it was a privilege to work with the people I worked with and a privilege to help the president. Now, the reason I wouldn't go back now is I do think I'm used up with Donald Trump, and that's, I'm at peace with that. And I had conversations with him, which I recount in the book months before I departed.

And I said, hey, Mr. President, listen, I want nothing out of this job except to do it well until my last day and when we're no longer effective working together, I want to leave.

Peter Robinson: Just said so?

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, right, so we left, which is unusual for most people leave Trump in the White House, with a good relationship.

I think he doesn't appreciate some of the criticisms that I've levied at him in my previous book and here and after January 6th and so forth. But I just try to be honest about, here's how I view his presidency and I hope that that's what readers can come out of this with.

And, Peter, just one last thing I'll just say is, I know people are gonna ask me this, do you endorse anybody here? And that's not my role, I don't think, my role as a historian, as somebody who had the privilege of serving as national security advisor is to do the best job I can at telling the story as I saw it, as I experienced it. And that's what I hope readers will take away from it.

Peter Robinson: HR McMaster, author of At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, HR thank you.

H.R. McMaster: Thank you, Peter.

Peter Robinson: For Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover Institution, and Fox Nation, I'm Peter Robinson.