At War with Ourselves My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House

So here's another great example of this courtesy of a new book from General H.R. McMaster, a man who we have no reason to believe but let's just believe him now, At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.

He recounts in his new book At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House that Trump made the crazy suggestion of bombing drug cartels in Mexico.

it's one of the stories that I tell at war with ourselves is how hard it is to affect big changes in the area of foreign policy and national security.

there are three types of people who serve, I think, in any administration, right? The first type of person is somebody who's maybe served across their career in the State Department or an intelligence official or a military officer, and they recognize that hey, it's not their job to make policy. It's the elected president's job to make policy. And what your job is is to get that president best advice and multiple options.

So I think that you don't want that second or third group of people to be serving in the White House because hey, nobody elected them. And not only are they not serving the elected president well, they're actually undermining the Constitution in the United States because in our country sovereignty lies with the people and the people elected the president, not the National Security Advisor, members of the cabinet, like the Secretary of State or Defense.

if you could go back to the December 2017 national security strategy of the United States the President Trump signed, approved every part of it and it's a document that is hard to take exception to today it really lays out what our priorities were then and what they should be now it emphasized the need to pursue peace through strength

And one of the themes in the book is that there are three types of people who serve, I think, in any administration, right? The first type of person is somebody who's maybe served across their career in the State Department or an intelligence official or a military officer, and they recognize that hey, it's not their job to make policy. It's the elected president's job to make policy. And what your job is is to get that president best advice and multiple options.

There's a second group of people though who are not there to help the president make his or her own decisions. They're actually there to manipulate decisions consistent with their agenda.

And then a third group of people, I think we saw this in the Trump administration, but in other administrations too, they define their role as saving the country and the world from the president.

The president agreed with Xi that military exercises with South Korea were provocative and went on to describe them as a waste of money. Even worse, he seemed to agree with Xi's suggestion of a return of freeze for freeze.

I passed White House Chief of Staff John Kelly a folded note: 'He ate our lunch. Trump walked into the trap.'

Weakness is provocative.

I would tell him, 'Hey, this is the best liar in the world.' He has aspirations, he has objectives in mind that go far beyond anything in relation to us.

This is not a warning about President Trump; this is informing readers about, you know, the president's character and personality, how that interacts with, you know, the real challenges that we faced.

It offers readers an inside look into Trump's psychology and character and his orientation towards global conflict and the military.

in a disturbing but intriguing read, he meaning you, portrays his former boss as unfit for office

President Trump is flawed in significant ways.

it will take a long-term effort to restore what Donald Trump, his enablers, and those who encouraged him took from us that day

His insecurity made him susceptible to manipulation.