Trump was treated like an ‘idiot’ by foreign dictators who took advantage of him, former top adviser says
Really support
independent journalism
Our mission is to provide unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds governments accountable and reveals the truth.
Whether it’s $5 or $50, every contribution counts.
Support us to deliver agenda-free journalism.
Trump’s former national security adviser HR McMaster wrote in a new book that the then-president was treated like an “idiot” by a series of authoritarian leaders.
McMaster, a lieutenant general, recounts in his memoirs a trip of nearly two weeks in Asia At war with ourselves, claiming that China was the “most significant” destination.
En route to Beijing, McMaster warned Donald Trump that Chinese President Xi Jinping would try to mislead the then-president into saying something positive for China that would actually be bad for the United States and its allies.
“The CCP’s favorite phrase, ‘win-win,’ actually meant that China won twice,” wrote McMaster, who told Trump he had responded to him. Although Trump appeared to listen at the time, he later said he agreed with Xi that South Korea’s military exercises were “provocative” and a “waste of money.” He also suggested that China could lay claim to the Senkaku Islands, which belong to Japan, a U.S. ally.
As his stomach clenched, McMaster wrote in a memo to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly, a general, that Xi “ate our lunch,” according to The New York Times.
The national security adviser writes in his memoir that Trump was often treated like an “idiot” by authoritarian leaders.
To ingratiate themselves with Trump, a little flattery and pomp and ceremony seemed to be all that leaders such as Xi, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan needed.
McMaster notes that in 2018 he found Trump writing a note to Putin on a The New York Post article in which he says he is disappointed with the way the American political system is “eating itself” but in which he praises Trump, calling him a great communicator.
“I am not disappointed at all. Moreover, on a personal level, he made a very good impression on me,” Putin said, according to the daily. Job.
Trump asked McMaster to send the memo to the Kremlin just as evidence began to emerge that Putin appeared to have ordered an assassination in the UK.
The adviser did not send the note, telling a furious Trump that it would “reinforce the narrative that you are somehow in the Kremlin’s pocket.”
In an interview with Phil McGraw, known as Dr. Phil, that aired Tuesday night, Trump explained how President Joe Biden resigned and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
“They give you a nice, fresh opponent, and so I have to win it. If I win it, it would mean there’s an incredible power up there that wants me to get involved in saving, and maybe not just saving the nation,” he said as they discussed the assassination attempt on him last month. “Maybe it’s saving the world. You know, I get along with all these tough guys.”
McMaster writes that Trump aides “accused each other of disloyalty” as they tried to influence the then-president. The national security adviser writes that a “whirlwind of vitriol” often undermined the administration’s goals and that “Trump’s indiscipline made him the antagonist of his own story.”
When the subject of Mexico came up during a discussion, McMaster writes that Trump asked, “Why not just bomb the drugs?”
The lieutenant general also notes that the failure of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 can be linked to the “atmosphere of incoherence” that reigns under the Trump administration.
McMaster questioned whether Trump, 78, could “do the sometimes exhausting job of being president,” adding that the 13-day trip to Asia left him “tired” — seven years ago.
“Trump’s anxieties and insecurities made him vulnerable,” McMaster writes.
