H.R. McMaster

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133 appearances 4 recordings 4 series first heard Jan 2025 last heard May 2025

H.R. McMaster’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Honestly with Bari Weiss · H.R. McMaster on Trump: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly · 16 Jan 2025 podcast
you know, the issues we were facing. So, I mean, the guy was not without merit, you know, to pick as my successor there.
Right.
Yeah. Well, in this case, no. And the reason is that I think what happens with President Trump and other presidents as well is they tend to mirror image whoever their interlocutor is, in this case an adversary of Putin, and think that he'll kind of have a conversation with them in which he prioritizes the same things that I would prioritize. But Putin is a man who's obsessed.
He's a man who's obsessed with restoring Russia to national greatness and to do so really by reestablishing the Russian empire. And so he has aspirations that go far beyond anything that's in reaction to what we could offer. And I think also he's operating against history.
I can't think of one example in history in which Assad was able to achieve a favorable outcome from a negotiated settlement that did not reflect the military realities on the ground. And so the idea that you can get a big deal with him without first convincing Putin that he's losing, I think President Trump will... belatedly come to that conclusion.
He'll recognize that there cannot be an end to the war until Putin is convinced that he's losing. Because Putin won't stop. Look at what he's doing right now. He's already annexed Belarus. He's continually the onslaught against Ukrainian people. He's taken about 30,000 casualties a month, which I think is unsustainable on the part of the Russians. But he's flipped an election in Romania.
He's meddling in other European elections. He's cutting undersea cables, burning warehouses in Lithuania, and putting incendiary bombs on DHL aircraft. I mean, Russia's waging a war against us right now. And so I think also, though, Russia's very weak. Putin is sitting on piles of cash that he can't convert. He has a severe labor shortage. They're on the verge of hyperinflation in the country.
And what if Donald Trump instead comes in, instead of saying, I'm going to solve it in a day, says, you know what? This kind of feckless approach to supporting Ukrainians, I think that was ridiculous. I'm going to issue a long-term, low-interest loan to the Ukrainians right now to buy as many US weapons and munitions as they want.
I don't know. I mean, I don't know.
I mean, the man has influence, and there's a lot of people that think that. But Donald Trump is. He's the deciding factor on that. Because you already have a lot of bipartisan support. And you just had, it was really that narrow, thin majority in the House that prevented it from happening. What I think is possible, And I actually don't even want to say this because I hope it happens.
And if I say it, it'll be less likely to happen. I'm not going to say it. All right, so, but I do think he will be able to, he will come to the conclusion that Putin is intractable on this. That reality is going to hit him. And then he's going to have a lot of options. I mean, what if he said to MBS, hey, what if we both produce some more oil?
What if we drive the price of oil down to $45, $50, even $50 a barrel? Putin is screwed if that happens. Trump does think that way. He has a lot of levers to put on Putin. I think he should do it now. He should do it up front. And then if there is some sort of negotiation, enter into that negotiation alongside the Ukrainians from a position of strength.
Well, you know, it's really the strain is on both sides, the Russians and the Ukrainians now. The Ukrainians also have a significant manpower shortage, have a hard time generating the manpower to sustain their their defensive capabilities.
But Russia's ambitions are much larger than their military capabilities, even as they're employing North Korean troops, 12,000 North Korean troops, not a sign of strength that they're doing that. That force is already decimated, by the way, that North Korean force. So what has to change? The dynamic has to change somehow.
There's no such thing as a permanent stalemate in war, not one that I can think of. Remember, the Western Front, World War I was stalemated. It was stalemated until it wasn't anymore by the Ludendorff offensives, which actually the Russians were employing. The German World War I infiltration tactics is what they're using right now to make some of these gains on the Western Front in Ukraine.
And then the war ultimately ends as a war of maneuver with the entry of the United States. But there are a series of swings back and forth. In 1917, General Nivelle leads an offensive. He says, I have the solution. Whenever a general says that, look for the exits. You know what I mean? A general has the solution. So he impales the French army on German defenses, breaks the French army.
The French army mutinies. It looks like it's going to collapse. Then you have the Ludendorff offenses, which follow, which gain a lot of ground, but then peter out. And then you get the allies gaining strength with US entry, and the war ends as a war maneuver. So right now, there's not a lot of movement on the front, but that could change. And every military has a breaking point, right?
Every person has a breaking point. Battles, combat, is aimed at the disintegration of human groups. And when I look at the losses that the Russians are taking, I don't think it's sustainable.
You know, there are a lot of talented people coming to this administration. I mean, there are some people I wouldn't pick, and you mentioned a couple of them. But the Secretary of State is fantastic. I worked with Senator Rubio on a big shift in the Cuba policy. He's extremely professional, collaborative.
He worked extremely well across the aisle in Congress to help get through elements of the president's foreign policy agenda. He was one of the first people to really raise the alarm bells on China and China's weaponization of its mercantilist economic model against us. I think he's a fantastic pick. Mike Walz, the Congressman, is a true professional. He's an empathetic person. He's a team builder.
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