Ex-Trump official says Trump was easy to manipulate

Shermichael, I do want to ask you about this. H.R. McMaster, who served as Trump's national security advisor, is giving a pretty blistering account of the Trump White House in a new book, even describing meetings in the Oval Office as, quote, exercises and competitive, sycophancy. Let's, listen to what he said on CBS. Let's listen to this. Also, the story in the book is how difficult it was for him at times to keep that decision, in part because people know how to kind of push his buttons. You know, this will make you look weak to your political base, this, you know. So I think that in in writing the story, I'm hoping to if he's reelected, to inoculate him a little bit, you know, so that he's not that easy to, you know, to, to manipulate, you know, and to, to appeal to, you know, maybe some of his insecurities and, and some of his predilections. Yeah. You're right. I mean, this is a continuation of what we saw at the DNC, former Trump officials coming out and saying that Trump is not fit for the presidency. What what's your response to McMaster here? You know, I take those quotes to be that Lieutenant General McMaster, is this someone that if Trump were to, win this election and go back to the white House, you want aides and advisers like that, individuals who are going to inoculate you from people with their own vanity, their own personal interests, to advise the principal on the best decisions possible, as he has to make tough decisions to move the country forward. And here you have a guy who said, look, if I were to go back, I want to sort of protect him from some of those individuals who are going to play into some of the worst instincts. he may have. You want advisers like that versus the latter, who only care about themselves. You only care about their own interests. They only care about their own objectives because it's not about them. It's about the American people. And I think you sort of saw that with Lieutenant General McMaster. yeah. Chuck, I think what McMaster is also saying is that Trump is pretty susceptible to that kind of stuff, flattery, fawning. I mean, we saw those. They were called the Dear Leader, you know, sort of cabinet meetings during the Trump presidency where he would go around the room and different officials would praise him. I think this reminds voters as well of what Kamala Harris said, don't go back. You don't want to go back to the sycophants who were just around him, who just want to not be McMasters, but tell him what he wants to hear, especially when we're at war around the country, when the economy's what it's doing. Like, you want an adult and somebody who takes the presidency very seriously. So I think that what this does is remind them that they don't want to go back to those days. Yeah. All right. Chugging. Sure. Michael, I you I suspect we might have more books coming before Election Day. What are we gonna say, Michael? I mean, look, he he could win. And if he does win, the American people want more people like McMaster. Not the latter. That's all. I'm simply argument here, Jim. Yeah. All right. Well, I mean, there's been a lot of talk here, Michael, that if he gets back into office, there won't be people like H.R. McMaster that Trump and and some of the folks that are around him these days are going to make absolutely certain that there aren't those types of folks. The adults in the room won't be there. I'm sure you've heard that. I take that point. I know I have, I take that point. But, Jim, I got to tell you something. You got to govern. It's a tough and difficult job, and you want people with the experience to do the job and again, advise the principal on making the best decisions for the country. let me ask you about his next move. He is going to speak at the National Guard conference. Kamala Harris has also been invited. I don't think she is going. Should she go? I'll defer to the Harris campaign on her schedule. I'm focused on actions, not on words. What we have seen with Donald Trump over his political career is consistent actions to denigrate veterans. He has attacked Gold Star families. He has resisted the idea of wounded veterans walking in parades with him. He has stood against everything veterans have fought for by engaging in sycophancy with autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong UN. He has threatened to cut veterans benefits. This is not an individual who can be trusted as commander in chief. And don't just take my word for it. Listen, all the former flag officers who served in the first Trump administration, who have issued collective warnings that he cannot be trusted to protect American national security. Most recently, of course, general McMaster, who has come out with a scathing and timely reminder of the dangers of the second Trump administration. I do want to get to that because, Lieutenant General McMaster did write a book, and he's been doing some interviews, in this blistering and quite insightful account of what he experienced, in the white House, he, he describes meetings in the Oval Office as exercises in competitive sycophancy, during which Trump's advisers would flatter the president by saying things like, your instincts are always right. No one has ever been treated so badly by the press than you. Meanwhile, Donald Trump would say, according to McMaster, outlandish things like, why don't we just bomb the drugs in Mexico? Or why don't we take out the whole North Korean army during one of their parades? When you look at the words coming out of he was in the administration, he he was privy to these conversations. How do you think it is possible that there are so many people in the public still want Donald Trump to be their president? Well, reminder that every time Donald Trump has been on the ballot, either expressly or implicitly, 16, 18, 20, 22 Americans as a country have rejected him, including in 2016 with a majority vote on the popular standard went against him. So he is not a popular individual. And the reason he's not a popular individual is that Americans deepen their bones, understand that he puts himself before his country. And those competitive second fancy conversations that you allude to. We know what that is. It's the same conversations happening in Venezuela and Russia and China. It's what dictators do to embed themselves in the organs of state. And I think the critical reminder from general McMaster, or is that a second Trump administration would be even more dangerous in the first. And here's why. During the first Trump administration, there were two groups of advisers. There were the sycophants, as you said. But then there were also individuals who put country and constitution before the president's personal interests and told them what he didn't want to hear in a second administration. Those individuals will not be there. He is going to embed his own courtiers at the white House, at the Department of Justice, in the military, in the Social Security Administration, and the entire apparatus of the Federal government will become a fiefdom for Donald Trump. How does Trump defend these allegations by H.R. McMaster, or does he need to? I don't know that he's gonna end up needing to do that. Or if he does, I guess it'll be like, you know, there's been a lot of former Trump administration officials that have had, negative things to say about him. So I, I assume he'll deal with them the same way he's he's dealt with everything. I think H.R. McMaster is a, a great American. He served our country honorably. He has a right to say the things and tell his story. But I, I would be surprised if this becomes part of the larger campaign narrative. I mean, if I were Trump, I would say, look, we had a lot of discussion in the Oval Office, the decisions we made or the decisions we made. And ultimately, I think we did a good job with the country. And I think Biden and Harris have done a bad job. I mean, you know, you could see how you'd pivot out of it. Yeah. Matt, what do you make of the comments by, McMaster? I mean, it's just extraordinary how basically everybody that was around Donald Trump when he was president thinks he was a catastrophe. And dangerous. His vice president, most of his cabinet, almost all of his chiefs of staff, he said the same thing. He said crazy things he sucked up to dictators. He attacked our allies. This is not someone who should be anywhere near the levers of power ever again. And it's basically a unanimous judgment on the part of the people who know him best that he should be kept out of the white House. I want to move on to to JD Vance, the vice presidential nominee for the Republicans who sat down and did an interview, another interview, with Kristen Welker, on NBC. And he was asked about whether the administration, if they were, to become the next president, vice president, would sign a federal abortion ban. Here's what he said. If such a piece of legislation landed on Donald Trump's desk, would he veto it? I think be very clear he would not support it. I mean, he said that he totally. Yeah. I mean, if you're not supporting it as the president, United States, you must have veto a federal abortion ban. I think he would. He said that explicitly. What do you make of this? Because conservatives, some people have come out really strongly against this, saying, hey, what are you doing? You're going to lose the election by saying that you would not sign us. Yeah, well, first of all, the premise of the question is a little fantastical. I mean, there's more of a chance of me sprouting wings and flying around this room than 60 votes in the US Senate for an abortion ban or any kind of more permissive abortion structure. I just don't think the Senate as closely divided as it is and will be after the election, is going to do that. So the odds of the next president signing anything are almost zero. And that goes for Kamala Harris too. She's she's promising to restore. She can you know. So now the Trump position is actually a very defensible moderate position. We're going to let the states make their laws. And my position is basically what Ronald Reagan's was. I believe in the three exceptions. I'm pro-life. I think we should have reasonable restrictions. But at the end of the day, the states are going to make, their judgments. And oh, by the way, I'm also a strong supporter of IVF, very defensible, moderate position. This debate about whether a president would sign a ban or not just strikes me as is, it's a sort of a fantasy conversation, because the odds of it happening are so infinitesimal. Matt, what do you think about this, response from JD Vance and the backlash that he is facing a bit? from those who who feel like they're too moderate while the rest of the country, obviously in polling, doesn't, doesn't like the idea of a federal abortion ban. So, I mean, it's clear that Trump is in a box here because his base really does want a ban. They want much more stringent controls on reproductive freedom, whereas most Americans do not. And it is clear that Trump's and Vance's pollsters understand this problem, and they know that this can be a real liability for them. Trump has bragged many times about killing Roe versus Wade by appointing very conservative people to the Supreme Court. We have the receipts on that. There is no you can't escape that. And Harris has made this a centerpiece of her campaign. You saw that at the convention, certainly in her speech. I think you're going to hear a lot more about this, because the things that women and girls are going through in the states that have banned abortion are horrific. They're only going to get worse. And this is going to be a huge issue