H.R. McMaster trashed the White House denials that he isn’t being fired with a smile and a single sentence to a reporter.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied that McMaster is on his way out:
Just spoke to @POTUS and Gen. H.R. McMaster – contrary to reports they have a good working relationship and there are no changes at the NSC.
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) March 16, 2018
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Tara Palmeri of ABC News captured McMaster’s undercutting of the White House:
"Everybody's going to leave the White House sometime," NSA H. R. McMaster tells @tarapalmeri with a laugh. "I'm doing my job." https://t.co/Q5mVHlZx0M pic.twitter.com/fIp2rUq9f1
— ABC News (@ABC) March 16, 2018
The White House is trying to stage the McMaster firing so that it doesn’t look like such an out of left field chaos bomb, but no matter how hard they try, the administration can’t hide the fact that the President is an impulsive chaos monster who lives to create incompetence and dysfunction. McMaster is on his way out. He isn’t hiding it. Once he is gone, the White House will be running out of adults who are capable of babysitting Trump, which is exactly what this president wants.
Donald Trump wants to rule by the seat of his pants. He doesn’t want to be told no by anyone.
The firings of Tillerson and McMaster aren’t signs of weaknesses, but they are messages that Trump won’t be kept in line. Anyone within the White House who tries to keep him from acting out will be fired. Trump wants a White House full of spineless yes men and women, and that is exactly what he is creating with his latest purge.
Just don’t expect H.R. McMaster to follow the script.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association