President Donald Trump named H.R. McMaster national security adviser in February 2017. | Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images Trump calls report of looming McMaster exit 'fake news,' aide says

The Trump administration batted down a new report on Thursday that national security adviser H.R. McMaster could be on his way out, with President Donald Trump telling a spokesman for the National Security Council that the article was “fake news.”

“I was just with President Trump and H.R. McMaster in the Oval Office,” the spokesman, Michael Anton, said in a statement provided to pool reporters. “President Trump said that the NBC News story is ‘fake news,’ and told McMaster that he is doing a great job.”


Raj Shah, the White House principal deputy press secretary, also cast doubt on reports of McMaster’s looming departure, telling pool reporters that the administration often dealt with “rumor and innuendo about senior administration officials.”

“There are no personnel announcements at this time,” Shah added.

NBC News, citing five anonymous sources, reported that the White House was readying itself to replace McMaster as soon as next month. The report says the decision has been “orchestrated by chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis.”

Speculation surrounding McMaster’s status has swirled for months, with senior Trump administration officials telling POLITICO last week that Kelly and Trump contemplated in November firing the Army general.

The relationship between Trump and his national security adviser — whom aides say never quite clicked with the president — was publicly tested last month when the commander in chief took issue with McMaster’s saying that evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election was “incontrovertible.”

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“General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems,” the president tweeted, referring to Hillary Clinton. “Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!”

Trump named McMaster national security adviser in February 2017, replacing Michael Flynn, who resigned after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with a Russian diplomat regarding U.S. sanctions.

Trump at the time called McMaster “a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience” in announcing the move.

