The White House on Friday denied reports that it is preparing to replace National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster as early as next month.
“Look, General McMaster is not going anywhere,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during an interview with “Fox and Friends” Friday morning. “As the President said yesterday in the Oval Office to a number of people, he thinks he is doing a great job and (is) glad he is here.”
NBC News reported Thursday that Chief of Staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis were orchestrating the move. CNN reported last week that the Pentagon was quietly searching for a four-star military position in either the Army or Department of Defense for McMaster that could be considered a promotion. The move comes after months of mounting tensions between President Donald Trump and McMaster, according to CNN.
Trump reportedly has issues with McMaster’s personality and considers him condescending and unfriendly, according to a Republican source who spoke with CNN last week. McMaster was pegged for the national security position after Michael Flynn was ousted amid reports that he had spoken with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. about sanctions before Trump was inaugurated and then lied about those conversation to the Vice President.
Despite the White House’s denial of McMaster’s impending ouster, the report follows news that White House Communications Director Hope Hicks resigned and plans to leave the West Wing in the coming weeks. When asked about the “chaos” in the White House on Friday morning, Sanders deflected.
“If this is chaos, I think the American peopler are glad for it,” she said, before citing a laundry list of moves the White House considers to be Trump successes in the past year. “If they want to call it chaos, fine. We call it success and productivity and we will keep plugging along.”
Well, that’s good. We need bulky men around for that inevitable body block that will happen in the Oval Office once Trump has his final Mueller meltdown.
That’s the kiss of death; he’s gone in a week. I’m pretty sure I heard the same assurances about Priebus, Spicer, Flynn, et al.
By the end of the day, every single statement from this administration will be a variation on “no x, no x, you are the x.”
Believe me.
Trump seldom has the balls to actually fire someone, he depends on others to do it for him. So “XXXX isn’t going anywhere, he’s doing a fine job and needed here” is operative right up until the moment someone does the dirty work for Trump and wields the ax. Saying “President Trump isn’t firing XXXX” is a worthless statement. Of course he isn’t, he leaves that to others.