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Vladimir Putin exploited ‘egos and insecurities’ Donald Trump He wrote in his book, doesn’t this affect him? Herbert MakemasterTrump’s former national security adviser.
guardian Get access to a copy of this book “At War with Myself: My Tenure in the Trump White House” It is published by Harper Collins and will be published on August 27th.
“After more than a year in this job, I could not comprehend Putin’s relationship with Trump,” McMaster recalled in his memoir, which covers the tumultuous 457 days working with Trump until he was fired via Twitter in April 2018.
This is what McMaster said to his wife Katie after the poisoning Sergei Skripal and his daughters in London.
McMaster said that while other Western leaders reacted strongly to the attempted assassination of Putin agent and former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain in March 2018, Trump sat in the White House and smiled with satisfaction as the New York Times published an article with the headline: “Putin praises Trump, US policy”.
According to McMaster’s memoir, Trump wrote a thank you letter for the article and asked McMaster to “pass the video to Putin.”
“I am certain that Putin will use snippets of Trump’s remarks to embarrass him and provide cover for this attack,” McMaster wrote.
He said he had forwarded the message to the White House Office of the Secretary of Staff, which handles communications for the Oval Office.
“Later, evidence emerged that the Kremlin, and most likely Putin himself, had ordered the nerve agent attack on Skripal, and I told them not to send the nerve agent.”
In reality, McMaster said, Putin’s apparent forced goodwill toward Trump was actually a calculated attempt by the Russian leader to exploit the U.S. president and drive a wedge between him and hawkish Washington advisers like McMaster, who have been calling for the U.S. to take a tougher stance against the Kremlin.
“Putin is a ruthless former KGB agent who uses flattery to exploit Trump’s ego and insecurities,” McMaster wrote.
“Putin described Trump as a very extraordinary person with great talent, there is no doubt about that,” Trump said, believing that only he could establish a good relationship with Putin.
“Like his predecessor George Bush I Barack ObamaTrump is overconfident in his ability to improve relations with the Kremlin dictator. The fact that most foreign policy experts in Washington advocate a tough approach to the Kremlin will only lead the president to do the opposite.”
McMaster described how Trump was obsessed with special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, to the point where it was “difficult to have a conversation about Putin and Russia.”
He said Trump linked “all the talk of Russia” to the report and allegations by Democrats and other opponents that his campaign and Trump himself colluded with a “Russian disinformation campaign” to influence the election.
While Mueller found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy, he uncovered multiple instances of the Trump campaign trying to cover up its contacts with Russian operatives and of Trump himself trying to obstruct or impede the investigation.
When McMaster pointed out at a February 2018 security conference in Munich that Mueller had charged more than a dozen Russian agents with interfering in the election, Trump tweeted that the general had “failed” to point out that the election results had not been altered or influenced by Russian efforts.
It was one of a series of publicity moves by Trump that signaled his increasingly strained relationship with McMaster, which led to his firing a month later.
“I have been swimming upstream with the President from the beginning on Putin and Russia,” McMaster, who succeeded him as national security adviser, wrote. John BoltonHe also clashed with the president, becoming one of several former government officials to condemn Trump’s re-election campaign.
McMaster recalled another incident in which Trump rebuked him at a July 2017 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
“My basic message at the last preparatory meeting at the Hamburg conference center was ‘Don’t be stupid,'” McMaster wrote, noting that he told the president what Putin wanted, including the U.S. leaving Ukraine and withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, which Trump later ordered.
“I told Trump that Putin had deceived Bush and Obama,” McMaster wrote.
“Mr. President, he is the best liar in the world.” I implied that Putin believed he could “game” Trump and get what he wanted, sanctions relief and a US withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan on the cheap. He manipulated Trump with vague promises of “improved relations.” He would cooperate on counterterrorism, cybersecurity and arms control.
Despite describing a strained relationship with Trump and criticizing the former president in his book, McMaster never joined other former administration officials in rushing to denounce him after he left office.
McMaster insisted he remained apolitical during his time in office, cared only about the interests of the United States, and wrote the book to “skip the hyper-partisanship and explain what really happened.”
He recalled the last day in April 2018 when his family came to his office and then-Vice President Marker pen Come and invite all of them into the Oval Office for a moment.
“Trump was nice,” McMaster wrote.
“He pointed the finger at my four cousins and cousins: Your uncle is a wonderful man, very strong, he did a great job for me.”
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