McMaster had NSC staff meeting to try to reassure career civil servants after ....

[riversedge]

Jenna McLaughlin‏Verified account @JennaMC_Laugh

McMaster had NSC staff meeting to try to reassure career civil servants after @K8brannen @dandeluce and my story:

Link to tweet

National Security
Trump’s 'Axis of Adults' Is Breaking Apart



https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-21/trump-s-axis-of-adults-is-breaking-apart
If you thought grownups like Mattis, McMaster and Tillerson were secretly running the administration, think again.
by Eli Lake

July 21, 2017, 12:39 PM CDT
"McMaster went on to say that career staffers are loyal to the president" WHF####



The president and the grownups. Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images


At a town hall for National Security Council staffers last week, their boss, H.R. McMaster, had a message for those assembled. "There's no such thing as a holdover," the national security adviser said, referring to the career professionals who stayed on the council after the presidential transition in January. McMaster went on to say that career staffers are loyal to the president.

He was responding to a series of tweets from the blogger Mike Cernovich, who singled out some lower-level staffers, by name, as alleged leakers. He was standing by the people who worked for him.

And while it’s admirable when a boss backs his workers, this event also highlights McMaster's own precarious position at the six-month mark of the Donald Trump administration. Behind the scenes, McMaster has had trouble replacing career staffers with new people from the Pentagon and the State Department. Until recently, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis had blocked many career public servants in their departments from being detailed to the National Security Council. This meant, in practice, that officials who served in Barack Obama’s White House who were supposed to return to their bureaucratic homes stayed on longer at the council than their initial terms.

Most of the time, this would not be much of an issue. But the Trump White House is obsessed with leaks and the disloyalty of the administrative state. It's touchy. When McMaster came into the job in February, he declined requests from other White House senior staffers to purge holdovers perceived to be disloyal to the new president.

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For a national security adviser, this dynamic is deadly. Traditionally, this job is supposed to coordinate policy throughout the government to meet the directives of the president. That job is next to impossible if the adviser isn't seen as speaking for the president. While all administrations experience infighting, rarely has a national security adviser been this weak.

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[gratuitous]

1. No, Mr. McMaster

Career staffers are loyal to the Constitution. As long as the president is abiding by the Constitution, he should have no problems with the career staffers.

[GeorgeGist]

2. As an aside ...

Pence looks like he was just delivered by Madame Tussauds.

[riversedge]

4. He does have that bland look most of the time IMHO

[50 Shades Of Blue]

3. I would not be a retired Fed now if being loyal to Nixon had been part of the oath then!