I cut some slack for Gen. McMaster. Some one has to be National Security Advisor and keep that job

[Tom Rinaldo]

McMaster is not a political figure nor should his job be political. But Trump is capable of firing anyone instantly, and not everyone Trump is willing to hire is even remotely capable. Trump could easily appoint someone like John Bolton as his next National Security Advisor, and there's not a damn thing that anyone could do about it as long as Trump remains President.

When he obfuscates for Trump McMaster needs to be called on it. But I get it. As long as McMaster leaves it to others to do the bald faced lying, I understand the tight rope that he is walking on. I'm not saying McMaster is the National Security Advisor I would want a Democratic President to hire (personally I would opt for Wes Clark) but at least he is knowledgeable and sane. We are on nuclear war watch as long as Trump is in the White House. We need sanity to prevail until we can be rid of Trump.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

1. Pretty much agree. And he's going to have a great book when this is all over.

[workinclasszero]

2. I cut him zero slack for giving a traitor to his country, cover!

ZERO!

He should be brought up on charges himself if he is conspiring to cover up high crimes performed by the so-called POTUS!

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. We will all know more some day when the full back story emerges

Not of this latest incident, we already know enough. Trump is a petulant infant with the nuclear code. He can out agents with a tweet. He can insult Islam at a rally and start riots half way around the world. My OP is premised on an assumption that soon enough we will know if it was true. I am assuming that the senior National Security Team Trump has had in place since Flynn was ousted has had their hands constantly full erecting fire walls and defusing bombs, to prevent Trump from setting off an inferno, and that McMaster has been part of that.

None of us had full trust in Comey (that is an understatement) but we all see the danger in his being fired and likely replaced by a Trump loyalist. I shudder to see who Trump would feel comfortable replacing McMaster with now, now that both his wounded ego and paranoia are rampant and gathering momentum.

[workinclasszero]

9. Who in their right mind would want to work for and represent Trump to the world?

Our government is soon going to be run by Alex Jones, Ted Nugent and Jim Bakker type loons if Trump is not impeached or resigns!

This is a crisis! We cannot wait around untill Putin decides to test his puppet with moves against Europe or the dictator of NK thinks he can yank the weak ass idiot chain one more time and Don the con decides a nice little nuclear war will throw the dogs off his trail.

We are playing with fire everyday Trump is in office. Many people are going to get burned badly before it's all over IMO.

[Kaleva]

3. Overall, I like McMaster.

[Iggo]

4. He's standing up in front of reporters slinging obvious bullshit. No fucking slack. (n/t)

[Rustyeye77]

5. I don't believe what i'm reading.

wow

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. I don't believe our real world choices, or the nightmare we are in if each day didn't remind me.

National Security Advisors don't even require Senate confirmation hearings. Trump could make his next one Bannon if he wanted to.

[anneboleyn]

14. Me either. This plus the posts over the weekend telling DUers to "give up" and ignore Mensch et al.

were really out of whack (imho) for this website. We are all capable of critical reading (dealing with Mensch and Taylor), and I have no idea why certain posters keep telling us to "calm down" and accept Trump or members of the Trump team as it "could" be worst.

Trump has SEVERELY damaged the presidency and now he has put our intelligence community at risk (potentially). That is not a joke, and that is not something we should just say awwwww shucks about either.

I will absolutely not cut McMaster slack. He is a grown ass Man out there lying (imho) to the world about a national security issue that potentially makes us less safe and endangers a foreign ally's intelligence sources -- all to soothe the big fat man baby in the White House who blathered this info to the fucking Russians. Fuck them all!

[Tom Rinaldo]

16. For the record - I have never said a bad word about Mensch or Taylor here

nor do think we should ignore them, at all. And it's OK that we disagree about McMaster, but we fully agree on this:

"Trump has SEVERELY damaged the presidency and now he has put our intelligence community at risk (potentially). That is not a joke, and that is not something we should just say awwwww shucks about either."

That largely is why I wrote what I did. Every hour that Trump sits in the White House he holds real power over life and death for many. Even if impeachment hearings began tomorrow that would still be the case. We need to be stoking the resistance. Trump needs to be "taken down" (politically of course). Meanwhile, every second, he needs to be kept in restraint as much as humanly possible by sane people on the inside also. There is nothing McMaster has or will likely say that can quell the furor around Trump. There are many voices to make sure it builds, ours among them. Those who resist Trump now get fired, and I'm fine with that in almost all cases. There are plenty of Generals who we can afford to have resign over Trump. Plenty of senior officials in most every agency possible can and should defy him and resign. And then thee are all of our elected officials.

But yeah, I do want someone relatively sane on the inside helping to keep the world from blowing up until we can get rid of Trump. Anyone who Trump replaces McMaster with will only be much worse in that crucial regard.

[Vinca]

8. The problem for McMaster is we can't believe anything that comes out of this White House. Nothing.

Personally, I don't know why McMaster and the rest of them are so willing to give up their self respect for an ignorant, infantile camera lover, but that's for them to live with. We should cut him zero slack. He signed on for this and he must realize Trump "ain't right." Pretending he is only covers up for him.

[anneboleyn]

15. Exactly. This situation is easily the worst yet as Trump and McMaster have told the world that our

handling of classified, very sensitive intelligence info coming from foreign allies who have very very sensitive operations taking place in hot spots in the Middle East CANNOT BE TRUSTED. Think of how incredibly serious this is!

Trump blathered this info to the fucking Russians (yet again with the Russians!), and now the source that gave us the intelligence knows that Trump can't be trusted with such information unless they want their sources exposed according to Trump's whimsy.

[lostnfound]

10. Last night, yes. Today, no way. Too comfortable with dishonesty toward the public.

[Orsino]

11. He shouldn't be holding press conferences, like, ever.

I was cutting him slack until he ran this errand, knowing that Trump is only using him because the other spokescritters are laughingstocks.

It is an honorable pursuit to try to provide a shitty president with the best possible advice, but damn, dude.

[grantcart]

12. I understood his message as

"Would the political actors hurry up and remove him, not sure how much longer we can keep this together"

[Iggo]

13. Yeah I went back and counted up the blinks. That's what he said.