“McMaster, whose temper is legendary, frequently blows his top in high-level meetings,” the report notes, citing national security leaks that he believes undercut his authority. McMaster and Steve Bannon also clashed with each other in front of the president during a reported meeting about a strategy on Afghanistan.
Reports Thursday revealed that McMaster concluded that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice did nothing wrong, amidst questions about her decisions to unmask the identities of Trump transition officials communicating with Russians. A letter from McMaster to Rice also surfaced, showing that he assured her that her security clearance would remain intact.
The Generals Can’t Save Us From Trump
Most recently, Mr. Trump last week announced that transgender Americans would be barred from military service — catching the Pentagon by surprise and upending a long-running internal review process. After each of these episodes, stories leak about how the generals were either outgunned by advisers like Stephen Bannon or, more often, just left out of the loop.
At the margins, the generals may dial back their boss’s impulses, and occasionally stand up to Mr. Trump in small ways, as Mr. Mattis did when he declined to praise Mr. Trump in a televised cabinet meeting in June. And there are small victories: Last week, General McMaster managed to remove the Flynn holdover Derek Harvey, the Middle East senior adviser and an Iran hawk, from the security council.
But it’s unlikely that the generals will consistently rein in Mr. Trump at the strategic level. Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and therefore, on paper at least, the president’s primary military liaison and adviser, rarely has one-on-one meetings with Mr. Trump. Mr. Kelly, a former Marine general who had served as his secretary of homeland security and whom many had hoped would temper the president on immigration, apparently shares Mr. Trump’s policy views and seems disinclined to challenge him. It’s unlikely he will change now that he’s chief of staff.
.. In the mid-1950s, the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington observed that American military officers had evolved into a disciplined and largely apolitical group of professionals. He outlined a separation of roles: military obedience to civilian leaders in areas of strategic or political discretion, and civilian deference to the military on operational matters.
This was the norm until after Vietnam, when numerous scholars conducting post-mortems on the war — including, coincidentally, General McMaster in his book “Dereliction of Duty” — concluded that military commanders should have challenged civilian leaders more aggressively.
And over time, that’s what happened. As the Pentagon gained a broader post-Sept. 11 mandate, branching into what were once considered law enforcement and diplomatic arenas, the line between the civilian and military division blurred. Combatant commanders’ assertiveness peaked when a beleaguered President George W. Bush looked to Gen. David Petraeus to extricate the United States from the Iraq quagmire by way of the “surge” in 2007.
.. Unlike Mr. Obama, who took responsibility for his administration’s military actions, Mr. Trump has publicly scapegoated the military for politically damaging episodes, such as the errant February raid in Yemen in which one Navy SEAL and up to 30 civilians died. He has also been openly at odds with Mr. Mattis over torture, budget cuts at the State Department and climate change.
.. General McMaster admitted that Mr. Trump went into his private meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia at last month’s G-20 meeting without an agenda — indeed, without General McMaster.
.. So where will the check on Mr. Trump’s incompetent foreign policy come from? Not the State Department, under siege and led, for now, by the underqualified Rex Tillerson. Only Congress, on a bipartisan basis, can constrain Mr. Trump’s recklessness and ineptitude.
The White House is imploding
A master legislative tactician such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can get you only so far; the rules of the Senate make it easier for McConnell to block (see, for example, the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland) than to enact. A president distracted by infighting, inattentive to detail and sagging in the polls can announce all he wants that “I am sitting in the Oval Office with a pen in hand.” No wobbly lawmaker is going to rally to that cry.
.. He constructed, enabled, even encouraged an organization lacking clear lines of authority and ridden with factions.
.. As dogs have an uncanny tendency to resemble their owners, so Scaramucci channels Trump —
- bullying,
- vulgar,
- egotistical and
- undisciplined.
.. The truest — and scariest thing — that Scaramucci said on CNN was that “there are people inside the administration that think it is their job to save America from this president.”
.. Trump appears incapable of allowing his presidency to be saved, primarily because he is incapable of and unwilling to change. He will not allow himself to be governed; he cannot govern himself. Perhaps things will settle down, but that is hard to imagine. The past six months feel like prologue to even more turbulence... CNN describes national security adviser H.R. McMaster as “increasingly isolated” and at odds with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, worrying those of us calmed by the idea of an adult buffer against presidential pique. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, publicly undercut by Trump, took time off last week, generating rumors of a “Rexit” to come.
Will Anthony Scaramucci Hunt Down West Wing Globalists Who Leak to Joe Scarborough?
After Scarborough recently accused Trump of blackmailing him regarding a story in the National Enquirer about his relationship with now-fiancee Mika Brzezinski, Scarborough refused to release the text messages with Jared Kushner that he claimed to have.
“I’m told by a person close to Scarborough he doesn’t want to show these text messages because he views these people as sources—anonymous sources—and he doesn’t want to burn them,” CNN’s Brian Stelter revealed at the time. “We’ll see if that changes. I think it will help to have some evidence.”.. As Breitbart News noted at the time, “it has been established that Scarborough communicates with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Scarborough has also effusively praised H.R. McMaster, Trump’s establishment Republican national security adviser, and Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser who was a former Goldman Sachs executive.” Cohn also reportedly donated to Hillary Clinton and is a registered Democrat. Scarborough has also backed Dina Powell, and Brzezinski told the New York Times she was responsible for Powell being in the White House.
.. Scaramucci trashed White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to Lizza but strangely did not have anything bad to say about his friend Powell and Messrs. Kushner, Cohn, and McMaster.
If Scaramucci is concerned about damaging leaks coming from the West Wing, he could start by rooting out the White House’s Morning Joe leakers.
Comments
.. Trump brought Mooch in to get rid of Bannon & Priebus. You would literally have to be living in fantasy land not to see that. If Trump still wanted either of those men in The White House, he would never have allowed Mooch to go after them like he did.
.. Jared Kushner has been panhandling world leaders trying to get them to bail out 666 5th Ave. Ivanka has tried to profit off of her daddy’s job too.
.. Is Scaramucci even a republican? Why is a populist White House admin stocked with liberal NY globalists? No one has ever been able to answer that question satisfactorily.
.. The Mooch is an opportunist. Like Trump he has a singular ideology. Himself. He is neither populist nor democrat nor republican or conservative. He is for one thing..himself.
.. Well we disagree on currency but Trump already told us why he likes Goldman guys because they are rich. And not sure what any of this has to do with his comms director but ok.