Former national security adviser paints picture of a chaotic Trump White House and an insecure president in new book

WASHINGTON — A new book from one of Donald Trump’s former White House national security advisers depicts the Republican presidential nominee as an insecure personality whose need for flattery and approval made him an easy target of foreign adversaries bent on weakening the U.S.

With his book, H.R. McMaster is the latest in a long string of Trump administration officials to write a behind-the-scenes account, a literary genre that has been thriving amid Trump's undying grip on American politics.

Having served 13 months in Trump’s employ before his ouster in 2018, McMaster has written a book that is neither hagiographic nor entirely disdainful. He credits Trump with devising strategies to fight terrorism and recognizing that the U.S. needed to compete more fiercely with a rising China.

And he blames some of his old colleagues — notably former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former Defense Secretary James Mattis — for failing to steady a new president who’d come from the world of show business and real estate and had never held public office.

But McMaster doesn’t entirely absolve himself in the saga, either.

“I was able only to attenuate rather than overcome tensions with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who prioritized their control of policy over collaboration,” he writes.

“Tillerson and Mattis were not just confident in themselves; they also lacked confidence in a president they regarded as impulsive, erratic, and dangerous to the republic,” McMaster goes on to say.

“Regrettably, we all diminished one another’s efforts and our ability to make the most of our opportunity to help Trump make decisions, stick with those decisions, and act in the interest of the American people.”

Mat