Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster in a new memoir describes the way Russian President Vladimir Putin influenced former President Donald Trump during his time in office. McMaster, who was national security adviser to Trump from 2017 to 2018, writes that Putin took advantage of Trump’s ego.
The memoir, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, comes out next week. The Guardian obtained a copy, and on Wednesday outlined McMaster’s account of the relationship between Putin and Trump. “Putin, a ruthless former KGB operator, played to Trump’s ego and insecurities with flattery,” McMaster writes.
“Putin had described Trump as ‘a very outstanding person, talented, without any doubt’,” McMaster continues, “and Trump had revealed his vulnerability to this approach, his affinity for strongmen, and his belief that he alone could forge a good relationship with Putin.”
“Like his predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama,” McMaster continues, “Trump was overconfident in his ability to improve relations with the dictator in the Kremlin. The fact that most foreign policy experts in Washington advocated for a tough approach to the Kremlin seemed only to drive the president to the opposite approach.”
McMaster describes a moment in March 2018 where politicians were reacting to an assassination attempt on former Russian intelligence officer and double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Meanwhile, Trump was focused on a New York Post headline: “Putin Heaps Praise on Trump, Pans U.S. Politics.”
Trump apparently wrote a note on the article and asked McMaster to send it to Putin. “I was certain that Putin would use Trump’s annotated clipping to embarrass him and provide cover for the attack,” McMaster wrote. He told the White House office of the staff secretary not to send it.
“[Putin] knew really what Trump’s predilections were,” McMaster recently told CBS News. “One of my roles was to alert him to that – to say, ‘Mr. President, you know, this guy is the best liar in the world.’”
McMaster was fired that same month after “ongoing conversations between the two,” an unnamed official told NPR.
“I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend,” Trump posted on X, formerly Twitter.
McMaster’s replacement as Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, has also turned on Trump and regularly speaks about his unfitness for office. McMaster and Bolton are two of several former Trump administration figures to have since publicly disparaged the former president. Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump’s press secretaries, spoke at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, detailing how Trump “mocks his supporters.”
McMaster’s memoir is not the first time he has spoken negatively about Trump. In 202o, he spoke out about Trump’s refusal to assure a peaceful transition of power.
“This is very disappointing and really this is something that our founders feared,” McMaster told CNN. “We have to demand that our leaders restore confidence in our democratic principles and institutions and processes.”
Courtesy of Sam Reich
Supporters of James Talarico cheer as they watch midterm election returns during a watch party at the Long Center for the Performing Arts Nov. 3, 2026 in Austin, Texas.
America Slammed the Door on Trump. Now the Hard Work Begins
The American people have spoken, and to paraphrase Dean Wormer of Animal House fame: Lazy, stupid, and corrupt is no way to go through life, let alone run a country. The repudiation of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement was seismic and inevitable.
The gravitational laws of politics held true, and Trump’s star crashed and burned. The thrill for MAGA is gone, at least for the moment. You simply can’t keep telling people that they are winning all the time when they feel like they are losing. Counting on the American people to once again believe you over their own lying eyes is a trick play you can only run so much. Just ask Joe Biden.
The poisonous combination of an unpopular and unnecessary war, horrible candidates, rising costs, a lousy job market, soaring gasoline prices, masked police hunting immigrants, sweeping and naked corruption, and a president more focused on ballrooms and algae blooms than on the American people all spelled electoral doom. The election results were a clear and thoroughly well-deserved ass-kicking.
Historic GOP losses in Kansas, South Carolina, Iowa, and Texas mean the Trump lame-duck era has begun. How soon will the GOP start the painful process of moving on from his stranglehold? His complete capture of the party will make the breakup difficult. And he’s not going to let them go easy. The infighting and battles for leadership will likely be vicious, but hopefully they will be about ideas. In a two-party system, having one party this radical and beholden to one person’s cult of personality has been toxic for our politics.
A perfect example of the sort of poisonous viper from the era, MAGA diehard and presidential confidante Laura Loomer took to X last night to say, “America is over. The communist and jihadists are going to open our borders and replace our votes with votes from illegal aliens. We now have reps who openly speak about their hatred of America…” It was just this sort of culture war BS from Loomer or Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (“no weirdos, beardos,” etc.) that voters grew tired of — when gas is over $4 a gallon these weak attempts at insults cease to distract. Owning the libs feels hollow when you are weighing whether to fill up the tank or buy eggs.The donor class might as well have lit a dump truck filled with cash on fire. How will Elon Musk, who spent over a whopping $450 million on the election, swallow this most bitter pill? Will he blame the president for his failures as a leader and withdraw support? Where do you even go once you have gone full MAGA?
On the other side, the Democrats set some historic and impressive firsts: first Black Speaker of the House, first openly gay man to be senator, first Black woman governor, first Native-American woman governor, first Muslim senator. These victories are truly inspiring, with more potentially on the way as votes continue to be counted (the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction seems a real possibility). The Dems have to keep growing the tent; it’s their greatest strength.
That said, now comes the hard part. The Democrats’ principal work must be to restore the country to a state of normalcy. Show voters you are fighting for them every day — stop trying to get on cable TV to grandstand about Trump and protecting democracy. The Democrats need to focus on voters’ real needs, reject the endless culture wars, and remind people that the Democrats were the party of working people for decades. Right now, folks desperately need jobs, lower prices on food and shelter, and healthcare.
Throughout his career, Sherrod Brown, returning to the Senate in Ohio after two years away, has been a messenger for working America in Washington. He represents a Rust Belt state that felt the full brunt of job losses from NAFTA and endured the opioid crisis. Dems should follow his lead to find their footing. Hold Trump accountable but don’t forget the voters back home who need help, and need it fast.
This is a huge reason for last night’s historic rebuke of Trump: He abandoned everyday Americans to focus on triumphal arches designed to honor himself. Democrats need to remember the lesson the American people just sent — being a people’s representative is not about party, it’s about service.
As Trump likes to say: Thank you for your attention to this matter.