MCMASTER/NATIONAL SECURITY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump defended Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, his embattled national security adviser, on Friday [8-4-17] in the face of a full-bore campaign by the nationalist wing of his political coalition accusing him of undermining the president’s agenda and calling for his dismissal.
General McMaster has angered the political right by pushing out several conservatives on the national security staff and cautioning against ripping up the nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by President Barack Obama without a strategy for what comes next. His future has been in doubt amid speculation that Mr. Trump might send him to Afghanistan.
But after two days of unrelenting attacks on General McMaster by conservative activists and news sites, complete with the Twitter hashtag #FireMcMaster, the president weighed in to quash such talk. ‘General McMaster and I are working very well together,’ he said in a statement emailed to The New York Times. ‘He is a good man and very pro-Israel. I am grateful for the work he continues to do serving our country.’
A senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the president’s views, added that Mr. Trump has ‘total confidence’ in his national security adviser.
The president’s intervention came at a time when his White House has been racked by turmoil and turnover. The abrupt departures of his chief of staff, press secretary and communications director, coupled with Mr. Trump’s own criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have left the president’s team deeply unsettled.”
-Peter Baker, “Trump Defends McMaster Against Calls for His Firing,” The New York Times online, Aug. 4, 2017