https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/mcmaster-and-commander?mbid=social_twitter
Watching a beleaguered Trump appointee struggle to hang on to his job can feel like watching a tipsy cowboy on a bucking mechanical bull. By the standard set by his predecessor, Michael Flynn—who lasted all of twenty-four days—McMaster was a survivor, having kept his position for more than a year. “H.R. is relentlessly positive,” a senior official who worked closely with him told me, but his ride with Trump had been bruising. McMaster, a decorated war hero, has joked to friends that his combat experiences compare favorably with his tour of duty at the White House. Trump’s combination of bullheaded ignorance and counter-suggestibility makes him singularly difficult to counsel. Before the President asked McMaster to become his national-security adviser, he had offered the position to a retired vice admiral, Robert Harward, who turned it down, reportedly saying to friends that the job was “a shit sandwich.”
Watching a beleaguered Trump appointee struggle to hang on to his job can feel like watching a tipsy cowboy on a bucking mechanical bull. By the standard set by his predecessor, Michael Flynn—who lasted all of twenty-four days—McMaster was a survivor, having kept his position for more than a year. “H.R. is relentlessly positive,” a senior official who worked closely with him told me, but his ride with Trump had been bruising. McMaster, a decorated war hero, has joked to friends that his combat experiences compare favorably with his tour of duty at the White House. Trump’s combination of bullheaded ignorance and counter-suggestibility makes him singularly difficult to counsel. Before the President asked McMaster to become his national-security adviser, he had offered the position to a retired vice admiral, Robert Harward, who turned it down, reportedly saying to friends that the job was “a shit sandwich.”
