The following is the transcript of an interview with H.R. McMaster, first Trump term national security adviser and CBS News contributor, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on May 4, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. He served as National Security Advisor during President Trump’s first term, and he is the author of “At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.” Good to have you back with us.
RETIRED LIEUTENANT GENERAL H.R. MCMASTER: Hey, great to be with you, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you’ve been here. Mike Waltz is no longer the national security adviser. CBS reported his deputy, Alex Wong, will also depart his role. But then, as of Friday morning, we found Wong was still on the job. It is not clear what the National Security Council makeup will be or how long the Secretary of State will be at the head of it advising the president. What significance does this have for America’s national security?
MCMASTER: I think it’s significant, Margaret, because I think what it reveals is, is a fight that’s going on within the administration associated with our role in the world and how certain people in the administration perceive America’s role in the world. And I think Mike Waltz was an America first guy, but he was an internationalist and prioritized, I think, our alliances. He knew that, I think, that- quite correctly that Putin won’t stop until he is stopped. And so he was an advocate for a strong approach to Putin. And I think there are those in the administration who have a much different worldview, you know, who are in favor of U.S. retrenchment or disengagement from complex challenges abroad, want to prioritize, kind of, the Western Hemisphere, North American defense. And you see that in your discussion with Congressman Turner as well, associated with the defense budget and what’s being prioritized in the defense budget as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you see this as a policy argument, not just a Signal messaging mistake, that Mike Waltz created that channel where he accidentally included a reporter.
MCMASTER: It is. I think it’s a policy issue, a worldview issue, but it’s also an understanding of the role of the National Security Council staff and the National Security staff that Mike Waltz was running and Alex Wong is still running. And that’s really the staff that allows the president to drive his agenda, that gets best analysis, best advice to the president, and gets him multiple options. It seems pretty clear that President Trump is not very patient in terms of a deliberative process these days. And this is why I think he may see the National Security Council staff as an impediment instead of, really, the best vehicle to drive his agenda and to integrate all elements of national power and efforts of like-minded partners to advance American interests.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I thought it was an interesting point Congressman Turner made when he brought up the specific point of reference the president has for the National Security Council during his first term, which is, Turner argued, seeing them as the reason he was impeached, during his first impeachment related to Ukraine. Do you think that is something that makes him distrust the council? Why is it that he would take the advice of someone like Laura Loomer, this far right activist who has made racist attacks on some of the members of that council?
MCMASTER: You know, Margaret, I think there are three types of people in any administration. Those who are there to give the president best advice, those who are there not for that, but want to manipulate decisions consistent with their own agenda. These are people inside and outside of the administration. And there’s a third group of people who sometimes take on the role of, maybe, saving the country and the world from the president. That second and third group, if you have an effective national security decision-making process that gives the president multiple options, they tend to oppose that process. They tend to oppose the national security advisor. And I think what you’re seeing is how easy it is for certain people to get in the president’s ear to sow distrust, to drive a wedge between him and the national security advisor in this case or the national security staff and those who are there to get him multiple options.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You referenced the different worldviews of some of the people advising the president right now, particularly regarding our allies. In Europe, we saw an interesting decision this week in Germany. Their domestic intelligence agency concluded an investigation into a far-right political party known as AfD. They declared it to be an extremist group because of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim positions. Their leaders have trivialized the Holocaust. They’ve called for deporting non-white citizens because that violates the German Constitution. This would sound like a domestic issue. However, the vice president and the secretary of state have taken very public statements here wading into this. Rubio calling it “tyranny in disguise.” Vice President Vance also weighing in here. Do you think that’s advisable when that party’s leaders have such a troubled history? Can you explain it?
MCMASTER: You know, part- part of this, Margaret, is what you covered earlier in the show about this kind of Women, Peace and Security initiative as well as, I would say, some of the radical DEI agendas of the Biden and maybe the Obama administration before that. This is like an equal and opposite reaction and it’s international. And this is one of the reasons why there are some people in the United States who kind of regard Putin as the savior of Western civilization or Christianity and so forth, which is obviously kind of a perverse view of him as well. But I think what’s related to this is this sort of, this emphasis on, you know, retrenchment, just take care of ourselves, disengage from the world. And I think that these are related. What’s, I think, interesting about this, though, is that the Trump administration, I think, risks replicating the flaws of the Obama administration’s policy. Because what you see is now some people in the Republican Party seeing the source of all ills in the world as like the neocons and they trace that back in particular to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. So that blaming ourselves, other Americans for the ills of the world and the associated impulse toward disengagement risks recreating, I think, some of the fundamental flaws in, sort of, the Obama administration approach to the world.
MARGARET BRENNAN: H.R. McMaster, thank you for sharing your insight. We’ll leave it there, and we’ll be back in a moment.
