When Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, many started turning away from the president. CEOs distanced themselves from the White House. Republican leaders denounced his remarks. But on a Sunday talk show the next day, national-security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster came through to champion his boss.
“The president’s been very clear,” McMaster said in 2017. He emphasized that Trump wasn’t a bigot, and he offered no apologies on the president’s behalf. Instead, he talked about American values in the abstract and evaded Trump’s equivalency between white supremacist and anti-racist protesters.
Journalists described McMaster as part of the “axis of adults” that was supposed to curb Trump’s worst instincts, but during his 13 months in the administration, he more often used his own credibility in Trump’s defense. He stood by as the administration implemented the Muslim ban, he covered up Trump’s divulgence of highly classified military intelligence to Russian officials, and he created an entire national-security process tailored to Trump’s nativist worldview.
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