Has President Trump Fallen Out Of Love With H.R. McMaster? The White House Is Leaking Again

While the national spotlight has shifted to Trump’s former Director of National Security, Mike Flynn, Bloomberg is out with a piece by Eli Lake (previously of Daily Beast and  Kurt Eichenwald’s employer Newsweek)  suggesting that Flynn’s replacement, H.R. McMaster, is seriously undermining President Trump’s agenda and has fallen out of favor. This is all according to new leaks from McMaster’s ‘allies and adversaries’ inside the White House.

[I]nside the White House, the McMaster pick has not gone over well with the one man who matters most. White House officials tell me Trump himself has clashed with McMaster in front of his staff.

On policy, the faction of the White House loyal to senior strategist Steve Bannon is convinced McMaster is trying to trick the president into the kind of nation building that Trump campaigned against. Meanwhile the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, is blocking McMaster on a key appointment. –Bloomberg

So, McMaster – an ‘establishment masterstroke’ and intellectual, has clashed with Trump in front of underlings, and has allegedly been trying to trick Trump into regime changing guys like Bashar Al Assad and Kim Jong Un – actuibs which would be in direct opposition to the “America 1st” platform Trump was elected on. Moreover, McMaster has apparently been talking down to his new boss.

McMaster’s allies and adversaries inside the White House tell me that Trump is disillusioned with him. This professional military officer has failed to read the president  — by not giving him a chance to ask questions during briefings, at times even lecturing Trump.

And while President Trump explicitly reaffirmed his public support of McMaster, the National Intel Director allegedly went behind the President’s back and called South Korea to let them know Trump was full of shit on them paying for their own missile defense Apparently this upset the President, according to the leakers.

Opponents of McMaster have pointed out that he was very close to David Patraeus, former director of the CIA under Obama and commander of US Central Command. McMaster is also a member of the globalist hive known as the ‘Council on Foreign Relations’ – an institute ideologically polar opposite to the nationalist platform Trump campaigned on. And apparently McMaster’s antics have pissed off the boss:

Trump was livid, according to three White House officials, after reading in the Wall Street Journal that McMaster had called his South Korean counterpart to assure him that the president’s threat to make that country pay for a new missile defense system was not official policy. These officials say Trump screamed at McMaster on a phone call, accusing him of undercutting efforts to get South Korea to pay its fair share.

This was not an isolated incident. Trump has complained in front of McMaster in intelligence briefings about “the general undermining [of] my policy,” according to two White House officials. The president has given McMaster less face time. McMaster’s requests to brief the president before some press interviews have been declined.

So – McMaster is apparently on the outs, though word that dyed in the wool neocon John Bolton was apparently considered as his replacement makes me think this all might be 4D kabuki theater.