At the White House, McMaster’s skeletal staff, those who had come to work that day, were concerned when they learned who was walking up the snowy main driveway to the West Wing just before 4:00 p.m. It was John Bolton. “He wasn’t being very discreet,” said one McMaster aide, noting that Bolton walked past television camera crews on his way in.
Bolton, a wily old hand from the George W. Bush administration who was known in those years for his hard-line neoconservative views and bureaucratic brawling, was being buzzed about as a contender to replace McMaster as national security adviser. Trump admired him in part for delivering what McMaster never did: fiery performances on Fox News defending the president.
McMaster’s aides were suspicious Bolton had come to pay Trump a visit. They asked Ivanka Trump and Hope Hicks, his communications director who was in her final days on the job, to find out what was happening. The NSC staffers wanted to try to stop Trump from firing McMaster without any warning. Ivanka and Hicks talked to the president and persuaded him not to tweet-fire McMaster, as he had Tillerson a week earlier. They argued that the military officer deserved more respect—at a minimum, the courtesy of a phone call. Amid this hubbub, Cutz felt he had to do something. For the first time in his years of working in the White House, he strode directly into the chief of staff’s office without making an appointment. He didn’t seem to realize this clock couldn’t be turned back.
“I need to see the chief right away,” Cutz told Kelly’s assistant.
Once inside, Cutz explained he couldn’t stomach seeing McMaster, a rock-ribbed professional and a role model, go down so that he, a relatively low-level staffer, could remain.
“I beg of you, don’t let McMaster do this,” Cutz told Kelly. “I’m resigning.”
But Kelly shook his head emphatically.
“No, no,” Kelly said. “You’re great. Just keep doing what you’re doing. What are you talking about?”
Cutz blinked. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Trump was insisting that McMaster fire the leakers. Hannity had fingered McMaster’s deputies as the guilty parties. The president’s alt-right fans on the internet were openly accusing Cutz by name, even though an early internal investigation ruled out both him and Bajraktari because neither ever had access to the document. And still, here was Kelly, standing in front of Cutz and insisting that both he and the president wanted him to stay.
At the same time or shortly after, Trump called McMaster, summoning him to the phone and away from his meetings with foreign leaders. Trump was terse. He said something to the effect of “I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“Yes, Mr. President. I understand,” McMaster said. “How quickly do you want me to go?”
“Friday,” Trump replied, meaning the next day.
McMaster suggested a more structured handoff, perhaps over a two-week period, so that he could share briefing materials with his successor. Trump said that would be fine. But he wanted to announce the change immediately. McMaster quickly called his core team of NSC advisers to gather for a conference call. He wanted them to hear the news from him before Trump tweeted it. When they all hung up, McMaster’s two top deputies, the ones accused of the leak, sent Kelly an email informing him they were tendering their resignations, effective when McMaster left his office.
It took only a few minutes for Trump to announce his own news. The tweet posted at 6:26 p.m.: “I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.”
McMaster did not go quietly, however. During the two-week handoff period, he delivered a stinging rebuke of Trump’s Russia policy. On April 3, in a dinner speech at the Atlantic Council, McMaster denounced Russia’s aggression around the world and said the United States was falling short in confronting it.
“Russia has used old and new forms of aggression to undermine our open societies and the foundations of international peace and stability,” McMaster said. “For too long some nations have looked the other way in the face of these threats. Russia brazenly and implausibly denies its actions. And we have failed to impose sufficient costs.”
Earlier that same day, Trump said during a news conference with the leaders of the Baltic States that he was hopeful of forging an alliance with Putin. “Ideally we want to be able to get along with Russia,” the president said.
McMaster made clear he saw little virtue in getting along with Russia. “Would you rather be part of a small club of autocrats that might rotate their meetings between Moscow, Tehran, Damascus, Havana, Caracas, and Pyongyang, or would you rather be a club of free peoples who respect sovereignty, individual rights, and the rule of law?” he told the Atlantic Council. “I think our club is better.”
The audience burst into applause. The Atlantic Council’s president, Frederick Kempe, congratulated McMaster “for that ringing voice of clarity.” This was the last time McMaster spoke publicly as a member of the Trump administration.
* * *
—
The tumult on Trump’s legal team mirrored the chaos in his White House—a virtual Tilt-A-Whirl, with the president pressing the buttons like a carnival-ride operator. Joe diGenova, the lawyer Trump had announced he was hiring based on his Fox News appearances, lasted less than one week. On March 23, Trump met with diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing. The couple, both seasoned lawyers with solid track records, came as a package, but Trump told aides he was less impressed with them than he had expected. He explicitly ruled out Toensing speaking for him on television, complaining that she showed up in the Oval Office wearing a flowing bohemian-style wrap and fingerless gloves. DiGenova, meanwhile, wore an ill-fitting suit. Trump envisioned “killers” as his lawyers, and diGenova and Toensing simply did not have “the look.”
Trump found a face-saving way to back out of hiring diGenova and Toensing without directly offending them. The couple had responsibly flagged for the president a potential conflict of interest that he would need to be aware of if they represented him. They also represented Mark Corallo, the former spokesman for Trump’s legal team who was a potential witness in the probe into the president’s possible obstruction of justice. For diGenova and Toensing to continue, Trump would have to be aware of the Corallo conflict and agree it did not concern him. Jay Sekulow announced March 25 that diGenova and Toensing would no longer be joining the legal team.
Sekulow had been expecting to eventually downsize his own role in the Trump legal battle, and though an avid fan of the president, he never planned to lead his legal defense team. But after a week of turmoil, Sekulow, a rock music fan, adopted a Zen attitude and a gallows humor to try to roll with the punches. “Welcome to the Hotel California,” Sekulow said in a joking reference to the Eagles hit when a colleague asked him what the turnover meant for him. “You can check out anytime you want. But you can never leave.”