Historically, the main task of any President-elect in the United States is to form a cabinet. In the last weeks, we have seen a cascade of announcements that have raised some eyebrows. Donald Trump’s picks for key positions in his second administration might seem odd to many.

Not so much if you grab a copy of retired Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster’s insightful book At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House (Harper).

Upon his selection as National Security Advisor by the 45^th President, the military general wanted to give his boss the best of his expertise. After consulting with one of his notorious predecessors, Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, who masterfully seconded President George H. W. Bush, McMaster understood his role as “making the policy process work and developing options for the president; and second, advising the president with views unalloyed by the departments and their bureaucracies.” The only person that mattered to him was the President, whose foreign policy should be well served. He also perceived his role as being above partisanship. His goodwill would be rewarded with disappointment.

The National Security Advisor recounts that, right from the start, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense would undercut him in a manifest desire to control what they perceived as their turf. The first one, Rex Tillerson, even called the President a “moron” – not the best thing to do to stay in your boss’ good graces – and a visible misunderstanding of his role by an official who was serving at the pleasure of the President – to implement the President’s agenda.

“It was difficult to get State and Defense even to comply with Trump’s directives to stop certain activities”, writes the author. “We were at war with ourselves,” continues the National Security Advisor with a shocking formula that encapsulates these frictions and the tensions emanating “from people who agitated him or constantly vied to curry favour” or were purely toxic.

President Trump certainly wants to avoid repeating that situation. Hence, he selected loyalists and made safe choices for critical posts in his incoming administration.

The other main takeaway from H. R. McMaster’s work is his penetrating portrait of President Trump. Far from being a hatchet job or a laudatory advocacy, the book is the work of a renowned historian (he published a seminal book on LBJ and the Vietnam War, among others). He draws interesting comparisons between President Trump and some of his predecessors, like Lyndon B. Johnson and, more importantly, Ronald Reagan (the “Peace Through Strength” used “as one of the four pillars in the draft National Security Strategy” is borrowed from the 40^th President). He also describes the President as a disruptive and contrarian figure who hates “formal preparation.” He can be ambivalent; he’s not a morning person, and he doesn’t like long trips. This said, the President has a “compassionate side,” a disposition that manifests itself when children are abused.

He challenges the claim that the President “compromised intelligence sources” during his meeting in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, qualifying it as a “false charge.”

On the last page of the book, H. R. McMaster evokes a hard truth that is worth quoting at length here:

“The vast body of memoirs and secondary source accounts of the Trump administration were useful for my understanding how memories and accounts of Trump’s first year in office were refracted through the lenses of partisanship and either advocacy for or condemnation of the president.”

While you can feel the author’s dispiritedness at the dysfunction of the machinery he served in, the book doesn’t leave you with the impression that the author is bitter or vengeful. From the first line to the last word, the reader can easily understand that H. R. McMaster is a bon vivant (his references to food are numerous) and that he approaches his duties with the noblest of feelings. “I knew that to fulfill my duty, I would have to tell Trump what he didn’t want to hear”, which happened several times from what the author shares. All in all, those are not the words of a sycophant or courtesan.

Despite what he describes as reasonable faith efforts, the author could not implement a better process for advising the President on crucial issues. The reader cannot avoid wondering how much of the pitfalls the first Trump administration was credited with can be traced to the tensions and frictions described by H.R. McMaster.

When I gave lectures about US politics, I always said, I will always think that anyone reaching the Oval Office has done so because of incomparable qualities, capacities and a steeled determination. Donald Trump is no exception to that rule. The fact that he seemed to have learnt from his first mandate in trying – as much as possible – to avoid the pitfalls of internecine warfare among his top officials is an eloquent testament to that. You may dislike the former and incoming President as much as you want – he has no shortage of detractors – but you need to give him credit where credit is due.

What is happening during the transition towards Trump 2.0 can be better understood if one takes the time to dive between the covers of At War with Ourselves.

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H. R. McMaster, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, New York, Harper, 2024, 368 pages.