At daggers drawn: Trump’s team of rivals

James Bradshaw

November 27, 2024 9 Reactions

As the title suggests, the work environment which McMaster experienced was chaotic: always filled with loud competing voices and often bereft of a clear unifying vision.

Apologists for Trump sometimes lay the blame for various mishaps at the feet of his underlings, as if they had been appointed by someone else, and as if the institutional culture of Trump-led organisations did not permeate downwards from its creator.

It is clear from McMaster’s account that Trump likes to pit various officials against one another. In an intellectually open environment, this could be an advantage for diplomacy by ensuring that there was a robust debate about key issues in light of constantly evolving evidence.

In the case of Donald Trump, this is not at all what takes place. Internal debate in a Trump workplace is not about fundamental questions relating to objectives or practical questions relating to execution.

It is instead about who holds the favour of a pathological narcissist.

Relaying the story of one intelligence briefing in the Oval Office, McMaster describes how Trump appeared “to revert to his role as host of ‘The Apprentice’” where Trump “was the centre of attention as candidates vied for the privilege of serving [him].”

McMaster goes on to describe meetings with Trump as “exercises in competitive sycophancy” where attendees “tried to outdo one another with obsequious compliments to the president and attestations to his wisdom.”

Information as to his day-to-day conduct and his level of education do not suggest that any such compliments are deserved.

Coming from a scrupulously honest and conservative figure such as McMaster (who now has a prominent role in the right-leaning Hoover Institution at Stanford University), the truthfulness of this account can be believed.

In addition to often choosing the wrong officials for the worst reasons, Trump is routinely unprepared.

McMaster describes a president who is reluctant to devote the necessary time to mastering his brief in advance of important meetings.

Trump appears to have little reading at all during his 78 years on this planet, and his lack of historical understanding makes him vulnerable to being manipulated by sharper foreign leaders.

Aside from the obvious example of Trump’s interactions with Putin, McMaster describes how France’s President Macron once played on this weakness by joining Trump in criticising NATO.

McMaster understood Macron’s true end game. Macron wanted to denigrate NATO in order to promote EU “strategic autonomy,” and all the economic and political opportunities for France which would come about if Europe took a more independent and even competitive line vis-à-vis the United States.

A student of geopolitics like McMaster can identify such strategies. Donald Trump cannot.

Another weakness is Trump’s overconfidence in his abilities as a dealmaker, as can be seen in his current boast that he can end Russia’s war against Ukraine in 24 hours.

McMaster makes clear that previous US presidents like Obama (as well as foreign leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel) also erred in thinking that a personal relationship with Vladimir Putin could change Russia’s aggressive behaviour, but few politicians are as fond as Trump is of setting impossible targets that they alone could achieve, and then failing to achieve them.

For all the deficiencies of temperament and ability which are listed here, McMaster rightly agrees with Trump that America did not compete effectively with its adversaries prior to Trump’s shaking up of US politics.

He wishes that Trump’s critics were more willing to give him credit for his achievements like the renewed focus on China, or the Abraham Accords between Israel and parts of the Muslim world.

The Trump who is described here is not heartless; he was genuinely appalled by the Syrian regime’s chemical attack on civilians in 2017, and any fair-minded assessment of his first term will show that he is more dovish than most recent predecessors.

At the same time, this soldier who came of age in the 1980s appears wistful when considering the differences between Trump and Ronald Reagan: a comparison brought on by a horse ride McMaster undertook in an area overlooking Reagan’s California ranch.

What strikes McMaster at first are the spartan conditions on Reagan’s Rancho del Cielo, and how dissimilar this is to Trump’s gaudy residences in Manhattan and Florida. Beyond this, the beauty of Reagan’s oratory stands out all the more when juxtaposed with Trump’s coarseness.

There is something more to this which McMaster does not expand on. Trump cannot be blamed too much for comparing so poorly with what has gone before him.

His career in politics is a symptom of the recent moral and cultural decline of the United States. True, he has accelerated this decline, but it would have happened without him as well.

A more healthy intellectual environment in the media and elsewhere would perhaps not have stopped Trump from becoming president, but it would have perhaps caused him to act better: to conform to the institution of the presidency rather than treating it as a performative platform, to use Yuval Levin’s helpful description.

McMaster describes how Fox News was constantly broadcast on a big screen in Trump’s private retreat in the White House. Some of Trump’s appointments appear to have been chosen after he noticed their performances (and they are performance) on that network.

Reagan, Nixon, Eisenhower and other Republican heavyweights operated in a conservative political and media ecosystem which was vastly more serious than what exists today. The same can be said on the centre-left side when it comes to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman or Jack Kennedy.

To paraphrase Billy Joel, Trump didn’t start the fire - he just added a great deal of petrol to it.

H.R. McMaster is a serious man, and a godly man. His strong Catholic faith is clearly a guiding force in his life and the life of his family.

One of the most darkly humorous anecdotes in the book is when the National Security Adviser is tapped on the shoulder during Sunday Mass by a Secret Service officer, who tells him that the president wishes to speak to him.

Leaving the church immediately, McMaster then receives a call (which he is warned is on an unsecured line) from President Trump. The Donald is not at church, but on the golf course instead, and is greatly perturbed to see his diary for the day filling up before him.

“What the f*** are you doing to me, General? I already have phone calls tonight, and now I have more phone calls this afternoon?” Trump barks.

McMaster draws a striking analogy between Trump and Othello.

Behind all the bluster, Trump’s insecurities leave him vulnerable to a range of manipulative subordinates like Steve Bannon who “employed the same principal tactic as Iago: impugn competitors with accusations of disloyalty or contradicting Trump.” This in turn contributed to the rapid turnover of senior staff during Trump’s first term, including the firing of General McMaster himself.

Will Trump make the same mistakes again when choosing all the president’s men, and what will this mean for how America engages with the world?

There is no reason to believe that Trump’s personality has improved in the last four years. He will probably make similar mistakes as before, including when it comes to hiring.

Although Senator Marco Rubio is an excellent choice as Secretary of State, other senior appointments are far less encouraging.

Looking at the world’s conflicts and hot topics, some of Trump’s next steps can be guessed at.

He will certainly try to do a deal with Vladimir Putin which gives away Ukrainian soil in exchange for peace. This betrays a misunderstanding of Putin’s (repeatedly stated) aim of destroying Ukraine as an independent nation. The only deal Trump can make here with this approach is a shameful one, and wise advisers like Rubio should be able to prevent this – unless of course he turns on them.

The Middle East is another question. Israel appears to have achieved all its war aims in Lebanon. In Gaza though, there is little prospect for anything but an Israeli occupation and the continuation of a low-intensity struggle against Hamas for years to come.

Not being beholden to leftist opposition in the way that a Democratic administration is, Trump will likely care less about the issue than Biden, and America’s goals in the Middle East will continue to be limited; no American president of either party will wish to repeat the mistakes of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya in the coming years.

American-led interventionism is dead no matter which party rules. America may yet come to blows with Iran, but any strike against the Ayatollah’s regime will likely be limited in its scope: aimed at changing Iran’s external behaviour rather than its system of government.

An America which is more realist in its outlook will continue to show less interest in Europe and more interest in the Asia-Pacific region. This will be resented by the European elite, but is an understandable step in light of Europe’s consistent refusal to defend itself.

Threatened trade wars and actual trade wars will be a strong feature of the coming years. While this will surely cause economic damage, Trump’s strong attraction to deals – coupled with his aversion to fine print – should mean that opportunities will present themselves for new agreements, like the "New NAFTA" deal which was agreed with Mexico and Canada in 2018.

None of this is certain of course. Harold MacMillan’s saying that the biggest challenge in statecraft is “events, dear boy” remains true. The future is unpredictable, but Trump’s actions are probably less so given what occurred the last time he was president.

With the right guidance, Trump should be able to overcome some of his worst instincts and achieve some goals over the next four years.

Whether the guidance comes from wise men like H.R. McMaster, or from others of a less noble disposition, will probably determine how well he fares.  

What’s your assessment of Trump’s character? Of General McMaster?  

James Bradshaw writes from Ireland on topics including history, culture, film and literature.

Image credit: H.R. McMaster and Donald Trump / BBC screenshot