Trump responds to critics calling for H.R. McMaster to be fired
"General McMaster and I are working very well together. He is a good man and very pro-Israel," Trump said in a statement Friday night. "I am grateful for the work he continues to do serving our country."
The knives have come out for McMaster among the most vocal, nationalist-leaning Trump supporters, many of whom are allies of the president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Some have cast doubt on McMaster's decisions in his role on Trump's National Security Council, which included the firings of officials appointed by the man he replaced, Michael Flynn.
Others have questioned McMaster's broader motivations, which they said seemed to counter Trump's agenda.
Politico's Pete Mansoor characterized the underswell of dissent as a split "between the Bannon camp of ideologues and the McMaster-Mattis-Tillerson camp of more centrist intellectuals."
A senior White House official quoted by The New York Times on Friday night said Trump has "total confidence" in McMaster. The remarks follow unprecedented turnover in the Trump administration of late, in which the president has lost his press secretary, his chief of staff, and his communications director, all in the span of two weeks.