Retired Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster said he believes Mike Waltz was ousted as national security adviser because he was on the wrong side of a fight within the Trump administration over “worldview.”
McMaster, himself a former national security adviser in the first Trump administration, made the comments in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday.
Regardless of the reason, McMaster asserted that Waltz’s departure is “significant” to U.S. security
Officially, President Donald Trump believes Waltz will make a better ambassador to the United Nations than national security adviser, Vice President J.D. Vance asserted. It was reported Thursday that Waltz was removed because there existed a “general unhappiness” within the national security establishment over how the National Security Council was being run. Still others believe Waltz’s time was done after the Signal chat issue.
McMaster said he isn’t buying any of it.
“I think what it reveals is, is a fight that’s going on within the administration associated with our role in the world and how certain people in the administration perceive America’s role in the world. And I think Mike Waltz was an America First guy, but he was an internationalist and prioritized, I think, our alliances,” McMaster said.
“He knew that — I think, that quite correctly — that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin won’t stop until he is stopped. And so he was an advocate for a strong approach to Putin,” he added. “And I think there are those in the administration who have a much different worldview, you know, who are in favor of U.S. retrenchment or disengagement from complex challenges abroad, want to prioritize, kind of, the Western Hemisphere, North American defense.”
In other words, McMaster framed Waltz’s dismissal as a policy disagreement instead of the mistake related to the incident being referred to as Signalgate.
“I think it’s a policy issue, a worldview issue, but it’s also an understanding of the role of the National Security Council staff and the National Security staff,” McMaster said. “It seems pretty clear that President Trump is not very patient in terms of a deliberative process these days. And this is why I think he may see the National Security Council staff as an impediment instead of, really, the best vehicle to drive his agenda and to integrate all elements of national power and efforts of like-minded partners to advance American interests.”
McMaster was national security adviser from February 2017 until April 2018 and was ousted by Trump in favor of John Bolton.
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