Former US national security adviser HR McMaster has claimed that Vladimir Putin manipulated Donald Trump's 'ego and insecurities' to exert a hold over the former president, according to a new memoir. The book, 'At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House', is published by HarperCollins and arrives on 27 August.
McMaster, who served as national security adviser from February 2017 until he was fired in April 2018, recounts telling his wife that he could not understand Putin's hold on Trump. The comment came after the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK by Putin's agents in March 2018.
While other Western leaders were formulating a response, Trump reportedly fawned over a New York Post article praising Putin and asked McMaster to get the clipping to the Russian leader. McMaster says he was certain Putin would use the annotated clipping to embarrass Trump and provide cover for the attack. He later told staff not to send it as evidence mounted of Kremlin involvement.
McMaster writes that Putin, a former KGB operator, played to Trump's ego and insecurities with flattery. He says Trump was overconfident in his ability to improve relations with the dictator, and that the president's affinity for strongmen made him vulnerable to Putin's approach. McMaster also describes how Trump became obsessed with the Mueller report into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, making discussions of Russia difficult.
The memoir details how McMaster's relationship with Trump fractured over Russia, leading to his ouster. He recalls being castigated by Trump at a July 2017 summit in Hamburg after observing that Mueller had indicted more than a dozen Russian agents for election interference. Trump tweeted a snarky response that the general had failed to note the election result was unaffected.
