- President Donald Trump has often seemed at odds with his national security staff.
- Those staffers appear to have joked about that disconnect at least once.
- But, according to The New Yorker, those staffers seemed to actively ignore the strange dynamics of the Trump administration.
ADVERTISEMENT
Trump's national security team once joked that his tweets could've 'overturned' their work
President Donald Trump has often undercut his national security team, and on at least one occasion, they joked about it.
ADVERTISEMENT
Recommended articles
Throughout his time in office, President Donald Trump tweets and off-the-cuff remarks have often seemed at odds with, or even in opposition to, the stated positions of his administration.
According to a New Yorker profile of former national security adviser Army Gen. H.R. McMaster by Patrick Radden Keefe, McMaster and other current and former national security officials often steered clear of "the profound upheaval of the present moment" under Trump.
Many of them evinced "a sense of willful disconnection" to that dynamic — with the exception of at least one incident.
ADVERTISEMENT
"According to a former official, at another meeting on North Korea in the White House Situation Room, K.T. McFarland joked, 'You know, the President could send one tweet and all of this will be overturned!'" Radden Keefe writes.
McFarland was a veteran of Republican administrations, but came to the Trump White House from Fox News. As deputy national security adviser, her style reportedly grated with many of the more non-political members of the national security staff. She was nominated to be ambassador to Singapore in May 2017 but withdrew her nomination in February, after it stalled in the Senate.
"We all laughed," the former official told Radden Keefe of the incident. "But this was the deputy national-security adviser. I mean, it’s scary."
"When I asked people who worked for McMaster if it was difficult to engage in a deliberative policy process when Trump might embrace a radically different course in one of his predawn tantrums, they reminded me, with the frozen smile of a Stepford wife, that 'different Presidents communicate in different ways,'" Radden Keefe writes.
ADVERTISEMENT
While this refusal "to acknowledge obvious anomalies" may have been a sign of fear about Trump's wrath, Radden Keefe adds, "I also sensed
FOLLOW BUSINESS INSIDER AFRICA
ADVERTISEMENT
Recommended articles
Tanzania vows to help boost Somalia's defense and security
Changes in the net worth of Africa's 10 richest men since January
France to back Morocco's power link to Western Sahara
Kenya’s Ruto backs Zimbabwe’s ZiG currency for economic prosperity
Here’s another reason Nigeria is losing billions of dollars annually
Top 10 African countries with the lowest fuel prices in April 2024
How SafeHamsters unlocks the potential of crypto betting| Insider Tips
A look into the diverse tax reforms being implemented across Africa
