The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website April 5, 2018:
H.R. McMaster departed as President Trump’s national security adviser on Tuesday — but not before he told us how he really felt.
“We have failed to impose sufficient costs [on Russia],” he said, implicitly faulting his own colleagues and President Trump. “For too long, some nations have looked the other way,” McMaster added, again seemingly targeting his own White House and, apparently, Trump’s overriding desire to make nice with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
And in exiting with parting shots, McMaster joined growing recent company. Increasingly, it seems that saying “goodbye” in the Trump administration means also settling scores and sending up warning flares.
McMaster’s comments closely echoed what National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers said in recent testimony to Congress. Rogers, who is also head of U.S. Cyber Command, suggested the Trump administration — in which he plays a key role — had accomplished little as far as sending a signal to Moscow.
“They [the Russians] haven’t paid a price at least that’s sufficient to get them to change their behavior,” said Rogers, who is set to retire sometime in the next couple months. Rogers also said he hadn’t been granted new authorities to combat Russian interference in U.S. elections and said “we’re probably not doing enough.”
Sometimes the parting shots have been more personal. In his final speech to the State Department after being unceremoniously fired two weeks ago, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson concluded with a pretty clear message about how Trump had treated him.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson bid farewell to his staff at the State Department on March 22 and urged them to “never lose sight” of their personal integrity (Reuters)
“This can be a very mean-spirited town,” said Tillerson, who was frequently contradicted and even publicly diminished by Trump. “But you don’t have to choose to participate in that. Each of us get to choose the person we want to be, and the way we want to be treated, and the way we will treat others.”
And now Tillerson’s fellow Cabinet secretary, David Shulkin, has spent the week since his apparent firing disputing the White House’s characterization that he had resigned and writing an op-ed expressing concern at the prospect of privatizing the department he led, Veterans Affairs. The White House has said it doesn’t support privatization, but Trump recently said he fired Shulkin so veterans could “have more choice,” which is often code for some kind of a private option.
“They saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed,” Shulkin said of unnamed privatization advocates. “That is because I am convinced that privatization is a political issue aimed at rewarding select people and companies with profits, even if it undermines care for veterans.”
Former veterans affairs secretary David Shulkin said he did not voluntarily leave his office and lawmakers weighed in on the future of the VA. (Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)
As Politico notes, it’s an unwritten rule that departing Cabinet secretaries and staff go quietly and don’t criticize the administration they leave behind. But just as Trump has dispatched with so many political norms during his campaign and presidency, his top advisers seem to be setting aside the usual protocol on their way out the door.
All of these criticisms have been glaring — without naming the president or faulting him or his staff explicitly. But the growing evidence makes clear that Trump’s top advisers, for one reason or another, can’t help but speak their mind while their words still carry heft. That suggests he hasn’t exactly listened to them in private and also seems to reflect that they fear the direction things are headed. It also suggests they feel they were less than successful in guiding Trump, which perhaps weighs on their consciences.
The fact that these things are being meted out after the fact and in public, though, isn’t ideal for anyone involved. And it reinforces that the Trump administration isn’t exactly a harmonious place to serve your country.
View the post here.