Trump has reportedly decided to fire H.R. McMaster

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last updated 16 March 2018

President Trump has decided to remove H.R. McMaster from his position as national security adviser, but won't fire him immediately to avoid embarrassing the three-star Army general, five people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post.

Trump also wants to have a replacement waiting in the wings, with possibilities including John Bolton, an extremely conservative former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Keith Kellogg, the National Security Council chief of staff, who Trump reportedly describes as "fun." Trump never meshed with McMaster, several White House officials told the Post, and would complain about him being too rigid and his briefings being too long.

Most people in the White House are on edge and the mood is verging on "mania," officials said, especially after Trump's personal aide John McEntee was fired and rushed out of the building on Tuesday. "Everybody fears the perp walk," one senior official told the Post. "It if could happen to Johnny, the president's body guy, it could happen to anybody." Advisers say Trump is feeling emboldened because of recent decisions he thinks were fantastic, including imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum and agreeing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Read more about the shakeup to come at The Washington Post.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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