Trump Appoints H.R. McMaster As New National Security Adviser

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

President Donald Trump has named his new national security adviser - Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. McMaster replaces General Michael Flynn, who was asked to hand in his resignation last week after he misled the vice president about phone conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. President Trump made the announcement this afternoon sitting on a couch with General McMaster in the living room at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He's a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience. I watched and read a lot over the last few days. He is highly respected by everybody in the military, and we're very honored to have him.

SHAPIRO: NPR's White House correspondent Tamara Keith joins us now to talk about the president's choice. Hi, Tam.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.

SHAPIRO: President Trump spent a good bit of yesterday talking to prospective candidates, mostly generals. What can you tell us about General McMaster and why he won the job?

KEITH: He is a three-star Army general. He currently heads the - well, until becoming national security adviser - the Army Capabilities Integration Center, which is a center of innovation in the Army. He is known as a hard-charging warrior but also as an intellectual.

He's the author of a 1997 book called "Dereliction Of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, The Joint Chiefs Of Staff, And The Lies That Led To Vietnam." In U.S. military circles, that book is a classic, and it's also a cautionary tale. And he - General McMaster has sort of a large presence and is a gregarious person and is clearly the type of person who President Trump would be very impressed with, as he said in that tape we heard.

SHAPIRO: I think many people are going to be wondering about his reputation as a leader, his positions on national security. How much of this do we know at this point?

KEITH: Well, I checked in with Tom Bowman, who is our Pentagon correspondent, and what he says is that he is - can - would be considered a strong choice, that he is both aggressive physically and intellectually, not the kind of guy, Tom says, that would back down to anyone in the White House in terms of staff or otherwise. He's his own man and will tell you exactly what he thinks. And if you look back at this book that he wrote, he essentially wrote a book about the generals deferring to politicians and regretting it.

SHAPIRO: We know that some people passed up this job because of concerns about control over the NSC staff, as some described it, chaos at the White House. It seems as though General McMaster has his work cut out for him in the wake of General Flynn's being forced to resign. Is he starting from scratch here?

KEITH: He's not entirely starting from scratch. President Trump also announced that retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who had been considered for the job and is currently the chief of staff for the National Security Council - he will stay on - also worth pointing out that McMaster does not face Senate confirmation. This is a job that he can start as soon as he can get there and get going. It is not a job that requires confirmation.

And you're right. There had been other people who had been considered for the position who turned it down or took themselves out of contention, including retired General Robert Harward. And he turned it down reportedly because of both family concerns but also staffing.

One big question for McMaster is how he will respond to the idea of President Trump's adviser - his political adviser, Steve Bannon, being part of the principals committee at the National Security Council.

SHAPIRO: Tam, you've also been reporting today on expectations that we will see a new executive order on immigration this week. What should we look for there?

KEITH: We don't have exact timing yet, but the idea is that this executive order would get around some of the legal challenges that President Trump's previous order - travel ban faced. So people with green cards likely would be excluded from it, and there would be some kind of a grace period for people who are - have visas and are in transit to the country at the time that the new order is signed - but exact timing, we don't have yet.

SHAPIRO: NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith, thanks.

KEITH: You're welcome.

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