At War with Ourselves, page 35
The vast body of memoirs and secondary source accounts of the Trump administration were useful for my understanding how memories and accounts of Trump’s first year in office were refracted through the lenses of partisanship and either advocacy for or condemnation of the president.
During the preparation of this book, as during my time as national security advisor, I relied heavily on NSC teammates and colleagues in the administration who read drafts and provided helpful corrections and suggestions.
I quote myself and others only when my memories of conversations were clear or I had verbatim notes to access. Foreign leaders are almost always paraphrased here, due to the practice of regarding what they say as privileged foreign government information. Because President Trump used aberrant language to convey fantastic ideas in the process of thinking aloud, I included only conversations that proved relevant to his frame of mind, decisions, and policy outcomes.
Sources
Chapter 1: “You’re Fired”
1.Philip Elliott, “Donald Trump Just Hired John Bolton. Here’s Why That Makes Some Nervous,” Time, March 23, 2018, https://time.com/5212129/john-bolton-hr-mcmaster-donald-trump/. See tweet at https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/976948306927607810.
2.Nicolle Wallace, “White House Preparing for McMaster Exit as Early as Next Month,” NBC News, March 1, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/white-house-preparing-mcmaster-exit-early-next-month-n852371.
3.BBC, “Vladimir Putin Praises ‘Outstanding and Talented’ Trump,” BBC News, December 17, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-35124280.
4.John Santucci, “Trump Says ‘Great Honor’ to Get Compliments from ‘Highly Respected’ Putin,” ABC News, December 17, 2015, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-great-honor-compliments-highly-respected-putin/story?id=35829618. The full quote is in Jennifer Mercieca’s book Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2020).
5.Mike Calia, “Trump Criticizes National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster’s Comments About Russian Meddling in the 2016 Election,” CNBC, February 18, 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/18/trump-criticizes-mcmaster-comments-about-russian-meddling-in-election.html.
6.John Kiriakou and Brian Becker, “ ‘Russiagate’ Morphs into a War on Dissent,” Sputnik, February 21, 2018, https://sputnikglobe.com/20180221/russiagate-morphs-into-war-on-dissent-1061850185.html.
7.Jane Mayer, “Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court?” The New Yorker, January 21, 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court.
Chapter 2: “You’re Hired”
1.United States District Court for the District of Columbia, “Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Criminal Information Against the Defendant Michael T. Flynn,” United States of America v. Michael T. Flynn, Defendant, Case 1:17-cr-00232-EGS Document 198, Filed 05/07/20, 2, https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/05/07/flynn.pdf.
2.Patrick Radden Keefe, “McMaster and Commander,” The New Yorker, April 23, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/mcmaster-and-commander.
3.Eliot Cohen and Max Boot, “The Full Transcript,” interview by Susan Glasser, The Global Politico (podcast), Politico Magazine, December 18, 2017, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/18/the-full-transcript-eliot-cohen-and-max-boot-216112/.
4.Peter Rodman, Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush (New York: Vintage Books, 2010), 284.
5.In possession of the author. Also available at the library of the US Army Armor School, Fort Knox, KY.
6.“President Trump Announces H. R. McMaster as National Security Advisor,” YouTube video, February 20, 2017, https://youtu.be/KxfRDfv9tM8.
Chapter 3: “Love All, Trust a Few”
1.For more on the organization of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, see “National Security Presidential Memorandum—2,” Federal Register 82, No. 21 (January 28, 2017), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-02-02/pdf/2017-02381.pdf.
2.Ryan Browne, “Pence and Kaine: VP Opponents, US Marine Dads,” CNN Politics, July 23, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/23/politics/mike-pence-tim-kaine-marine-dads/.
3.Frank Hoffman, “Black Swans and Pink Flamingos: Five Principles for Force Design,” War on the Rocks, August 19, 2015, https://warontherocks.com/2015/08/black-swans-and-pink-flamingos-five-principles-for-force-design/.
4.Keith Kellogg, War by Other Means: A General in the Trump White House (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2021), 107.
5.Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Lessons of Henry Kissinger,” The Atlantic, December 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/the-lessons-of-henry-kissinger/505868/.
6.Daniella Diaz, “A History of Trump’s Thoughts on Afghanistan,” CNN, August 21, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/history-president-trump-remarks-afghanistan-tweets/index.html.
7.Kenneth Harris, “Wartime Lies,” New York Times, April 27, 1997, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/27/reviews/970427.27harrist.html?scp=80&sq=cross%2520word&st=cse.
Chapter 4: DJT and LBJ
1.Greg Jaffe, “Three Words—Radical Islamic Terrorism—Expose a Trump Administration Divide,” Washington Post, March 1, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/three-words—radical-islamic-terrorism—expose-a-trump-administration-divide/2017/03/01/11137f78-fe98-11e6-8f41-ea6ed597e4ca_story.html.
2.Donald J. Trump, The Art of the Deal (New York: Random House, 1987), 39.
3.H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 71.
4.“Alexander Haig,” The Economist, February 25, 2010, https://www.economist.com/obituary/2010/02/25/alexander-haig.
Chapter 5: Intrigue, Elbows, and Separate Agendas
1.R. D. Hooker Jr., The Good Captain: A Personal Memoir of America at War (Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2022), 1.
Chapter 6: A Well-Oiled Machine—Really
1.Fox News, “‘Fox & Friends’ Exclusive: Trump Blasts NYT Op-Ed Writer, Says ‘It May Be a Deep State Person,’” Fox News, September 7, 2018, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-friends-exclusive-trump-blasts-nyt-op-ed-writer-says-it-may-be-a-deep-state-person.
2.John H. Durham, “Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns,” United States Department of Justice, Submitted to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, May 12, 2023, https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf.
3.According to the Guardian, he posted these three tweets in a thirteen-minute period on the morning of March 4, 2017. See Chris Johnston, “ ‘This Is McCarthyism!’: Trump Accuses Obama of ‘Wire-Tapping’ His Office Before Election,” Guardian, March 4, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/04/donald-trump-accuses-obama-of-wire-tapping-his-office-before-election.
Chapter 7: Deep Contradictions
1.Carl von Clausewitz, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, On War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 88.
2.For more on this visit, see H. R. McMaster, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World (New York: HarperCollins, 2020), 155–95.
3.See McMaster, Battlegrounds, 195–97.
4.Husain Haqqani and Lisa Curtis, “A New U.S. Approach to Pakistan: Enforcing Aids Conditions Without Cutting Ties,” Hudson Institute, February 6, 2017, https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/a-new-u-s-approach-to-pakistan-enforcing-aid-conditions-without-cutting-ties.
5.For more on the visit to Pakistan, see McMaster, Battlegrounds, 195–213.
Chapter 8: Tightrope
1.Mark Landler, Ellen Barry, and Jason Horowitz, “Trump’s 100 Days on World Stage: Rallying Some and Repelling Others,” New York Times, April 28, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/world/trumps-100-days-on-world-stage-rallying-some-and-repelling-others.html?searchResultPosition=3; Rosie Gray, “The Entertainment Presidency,” The Atlantic, April 30, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/the-entertainment-presidency/524877/; Tina Nguyen and Abigail Tracy, “Trump’s 100 Days of Failure,” Vanity Fair, April 28, 2017, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/2017/04/donald-trump-100-days-failure.
2.Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), 55–57.
3.H. R. McMaster, “Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster on Foreign Policy; Sen. Schumer on President Trump’s First 100 Days,” interview by Chris Wallace, Fox News, April 30, 2017, https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/lt-gen-h-r-mcmaster-on-foreign-policy-sen-schumer-on-president-trumps-first-100-days.
4.Donald Trump, “FULL TRANSCRIPT: President Donald Trump’s Interview with ‘Face the Nation,’” interview by John Dickerson, Face the Nation, CBS, April 30, 2017, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-interview-full-transcript-face-the-nation/.
5.Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe, “Trump Revealed Highly Classified Information to Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador,” Washington Post, May 15, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html.
6.“National Security Adviser on President Trump’s Meeting with Russian Officials,” C-SPAN video, 00:01:38, May 15, 2017, https://www.c-span.org/video/?428556-1/national-security-adviser-president-trumps-meeting-russian-officials.
7.Miller and Jaffe, “Trump Revealed.”
8.Fred Kaplan, “The Tarnishing of H. R. McMaster,” Slate, May 16, 2017, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/05/h-r-mcmasters-reputation-is-being-destroyed-by-trumps-deceit.html.
9.Clausewitz, ed. Howard and Paret, On War, 119–21.
Chapter 9: Travels with Trump
1.“PM Netanyahu and His Wife Sara Welcome U.S. President Donald Trump and His Wife Melania at BGI Airport,” Prime Minister’s Office, gov.il, last modified May 22, 2017, https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/eventairport220517.
2.Donald Trump, “Remarks with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in Bethlehem, Palestinian Territories,” May 23, 2017, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-201700352/pdf/DCPD-201700352.pdf.
3.Sarah Wildman, “Donald Trump at Yad Vashem Leaves a Bizarrely Chipper Note for Posterity,” Vox, May 23, 2017, https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/23/15680314/trump-holocaust-memorial-guest-book-notes-so-amazing.
4.Winston Churchill, “Speech Delivered at the University of Zurich,” September 19, 1946, Council of Europe, transcript, https://rm.coe.int/16806981f3.
5.Carl von Clausewitz, ed. and trans. J. J. Graham and F. N. Maude, On War (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1940), 142.
6.Clausewitz, ed. Graham and Maude, On War, 144. Translated also as “resistant medium.”
Chapter 11: Winning Friends and Influencing Foes
1.Statement by Secretary Tillerson, July 4, 2017, https://eg.usembassy.gov/n-07042017/.
2.Jonathan Capehart, “Trump’s White-nationalist Dog Whistles in Warsaw,” Washington Post, July 6, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/07/06/trumps-white-nationalist-dog-whistles-in-warsaw/.
3.Laurie Kellman, “Carter National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski Dies,” PBS, May 27, 2017, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/carter-national-security-adviser-zbigniew-brzezinski-dies.
Chapter 12: Knives Out
1.DFRLab, “#FireMcMaster, Explained,” Medium, August 7, 2017, https://medium.com/dfrlab/firemcmaster-explained-9e9018e507c2.
2.Lee Stranahan and Garland Nixon, “Establishment Media Frenzy over Trump Supporters’ Call to #FireMcMaster,” Sputnik, August 8, 2017, https://sputnikglobe.com/20170808/establishment-media-frenzy-over-trump-1056271718.html. Laura Ingraham tweeted on August 3, 2017: “Obama holdovers at NSC or State Dept who are leaking sh[oul]d do real time for these leaks. Why has McMasters [sic] fired actual Trump supporters?” After the leak of my letter to Susan Rice allowing her to keep her security clearance, Sean Hannity tweeted on August 3, 2017: “What is this? Does H.R. McMaster need to go? Susan Rice? Omg”; see Natasha Bertrand, “The Knives Are Coming Out for H. R. McMaster,” Business Insider, August 4, 2017, https://www.businessinsider.com/hr-mcmaster-steve-bannon-russia-trolls-2017-8. For an example of an article defending me, see Dov Zakheim, “The ‘Alt-right’ Plot Against McMaster, Spurred by Its Jewish Fellow Travelers,” Haaretz, August 10, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2017-08-10/ty-article/.premium/the-plot-against-mcmaster/0000017f-e56f-d97e-a37f-f76f61f40000.
3.“Statement by Senator John McCain on General H. R. McMaster,” Press Releases, McCain.senate.gov, last modified August 14, 2017, https://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20170815131900/https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=2EAD1145-92A8-49AD-B36D-E648F9F97B62.
4.Chas Danner, “Trump and Kushner Push Back on Right-Wing Campaign to Fire McMaster, for Now,” Intelligencer, August 5, 2017, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/08/trump-and-kushner-are-protecting-mcmaster-for-now.html.
5.Times of Israel Staff and Agencies, “Israeli Officials Say Under-Fire McMaster a Great Friend of Israel,” Times of Israel, August 5, 2017, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-officials-say-under-fire-mcmaster-a-great-friend-of-israel/.
6.Clint Watts, “Russian Bots Tweeting Calls to Fire McMaster, Former FBI Agent Says,” interview by Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR, https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544817844/russian-bots-tweeting-calls-to-fire-mcmaster-former-fbi-agent-says.
7.“Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” Final Report, H.R. Rep. No. 117-663, at 520 (2022), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/pdf/GPO-J6-REPORT.pdf.
8.Valerie Wirtschafter, “Audible Reckoning: How Top Political Podcasters Spread Unsubstantiated and False Claims,” Brookings Institution, February 2023, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/audible-reckoning-how-top-political-podcasters-spread-unsubstantiated-and-false-claims/.
9.Jenna Johnson and John Wagner, “Trump Won’t ‘Rule Out a Military Option’ in Venezuela,” Washington Post, August 11, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/08/11/trump-wont-rule-out-a-military-option-in-venezuela/.
10.NBC News, “Hagel’s Predecessors Decried White House ‘Micromanaging,’” NBC News, November 24, 2014, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/hagels-predecessors-decried-white-house-micromanaging-n255231.
11.This quotation is from an off-the-record interview that is part of a forthcoming oral history collection on Trump’s foreign policy at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives.
Chapter 13: Movement in a Resistant Element
1.Donald J. Trump, “Remarks by President Trump on the Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia,” The White House, August 21, 2017, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-strategy-afghanistan-south-asia/.
Chapter 14: Contradiction and Contention
1.Ameenah Gurib-Fakim and Landry Signé, “Investment in Science and Technology Is Key to an African Economic Boom,” Brookings, January 26, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/investment-in-science-and-technology-is-key-to-an-african-economic-boom/.
2.Eli Watkins, “Tillerson on North Korea: Diplomacy Will Continue ‘Until the First Bomb Drops,’” CNN, October 16, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/15/politics/rex-tillerson-north-korea-cnntv/index.html.
Chapter 15: Asian Odyssey (20K Miles with Trump)
1.“How Renewed U.S. Sanctions Have Hit Iran Hard,” BBC News, May 2, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48119109. See also Kenneth Katzman, Summary, “Iran Sanctions,” Congressional Research Service, April 22, 2019, 1, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RS/RS20871/291.
2.“Research Starters: U.S. Military by the Numbers,” The National WWII Museum—New Orleans, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-us-military-numbers; “The War in the Pacific: By the Numbers,” Collection of the National WWII Museum, p. 23, https://www.ww2classroom.org/system/files/essays/wip003_0.pdf.
3.Lawrence Korb, “Trump’s Defense Budget,” Center for American Progress, February 28, 2018, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trumps-defense-budget/#:~:text=Shortly%20after%20taking%20office%2C%20President,the%20proposed%20FY%202017%20budget.
4.Antonio Varas, Raj Varadarajan, Jimmy Goodrich, and Falan Yinug, “Government Incentives and US Competitiveness in Semiconductor Manufacturing,” BCG and Semiconductor Industry Association, September 2020, p. 10, https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Government-Incentives-and-US-Competitiveness-in-Semiconductor-Manufacturing-Sep-2020.pdf.
5.For more on this visit, see McMaster, Battlegrounds, 89–104.
6.Much of the information we presented came from CEOs of some of the largest U.S. companies, many of whom would explain how their companies had been victims of Chinese economic aggression. They would always preface those explanations with a request that they remain anonymous lest their company suffer CCP retribution.
7.In 2020, Lighthizer would secure the U.S.-China Phase One Economic and Trade Agreement only after imposing tariffs on Chinese exports and threatening more.
8.Orion Rummler, “Trump Says He Gets Along Better with World Leaders ‘the Tougher and Meaner They Are,’” Axios, September 14, 2020, https://www.axios.com/2020/09/14/trump-woodward-foreign-leaders.
Chapter 16: Weakness Is Provocative
1.But Hajin, the last town liberated in ISIS’s physical “caliphate,” would not fall until the summer of 2018, and U.S. counterterrorism operations against the remnants of ISIS continue in Syria to this day.
2.“Tweets of January 1, 2019,” The American Presidency Project, January 1, 2018, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/tweets-january-1-2018.
3.Jonathan Landay, Arshad Mohammed, and John Walcott, “ ‘A Mad Scramble’: How Trump Tweet on Pakistan Blindsided U.S. Officials,” Reuters, January 11, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pakistan-aid-idUSKBN1F030Q/.
