CNN
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Retired Lt. Gen. HR McMaster, who served as national security adviser under former President Donald Trump, said Monday his former boss bears some responsibility for the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
McMaster told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the former president decided in 2017 to maintain the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, but Trump then changed his mind. The Trump administration eventually reached an agreement with the Taliban that required U.S. troops to withdraw from the country by May 2021. President Joe Biden pushed that withdrawal date back to August after taking office.
“He couldn’t stick to the decision,” McMaster said. who served as Trump’s national security adviser from early 2017 to April 2018, said on “AC 360.” “He didn’t stick to the decision. And I think people were whispering in his ear and manipulating him with these mantras: ‘End the endless wars’ and ‘Afghanistan is a graveyard of empires’ and so on.”
When Cooper asked whether Trump bore some responsibility for the heavily criticized withdrawal during the Biden administration, McMaster replied, “Oh, yes.”
Trump attended a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Monday to mark the third anniversary of the attack on the Abbey Gate at Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members.
Trump was accompanied by some family members of the fallen soldiers. The former president regularly attacks the Biden administration – and most recently Vice President Kamala Harris, now his Democratic rival in the 2024 election campaign – for the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
McMaster writes in his new book, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,” about his perception that Trump often sought the praise and recognition of strong foreign leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in order to be perceived as a similarly strong leader.
“I’m really trying to explain the strengths of some aspects of the president’s character, but also his weaknesses. And of course I was hesitant at times to write some of it because I thought I didn’t want to give a guide on how to potentially manipulate Donald Trump if he were re-elected,” McMaster said Monday.
McMaster breaks his silence on Trump’s tenure in the White House at a time when Americans are weighing whether to bring the Republican presidential candidate back to the Oval Office or make Harris their new commander in chief.
Although McMaster has been critical of the former president at times, on Monday he offered unique and nuanced insights into Trump’s decision-making process.
“I’ve seen him learn, adapt and really evolve his understanding of situations. People often say to me, ‘Is he listening?’ Yes, he is. But often when he comes to what I think is a really solid conclusion based on talking to a wide range of people and a wide range of views, he often can’t stick to that decision and that’s when the policy gets out of hand,” he told Cooper.
Trump appointed McMaster, a three-star general who served in the 1991 Gulf War and the Iraq War, as his national security adviser in February 2017.
McMaster stayed in the Trump administration for just over a year and was replaced by former U.S. ambassador and Fox News analyst John Bolton – who himself published a book detailing a series of disturbing and shocking allegations about his time with Trump.
When asked if he would serve again under the Trump administration, McMaster said no.
“I think, Anderson, I will work in any administration where I feel I can make a difference, but I’m fed up with Donald Trump,” he said.
When asked if he would work in a Harris administration, McMaster replied, “I don’t know if I could make a difference there, probably because of our different views and the question of what is a sensible Middle East policy, or whatever that is.”
CNN’s Kate Sullivan and Peter Bergen contributed to this report.
This report has been updated with additional information.
