Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is retired

lieutenant general HR McMaster who famously was National Security

Advisor to Donald Trump during his first term or part of his first

term. He is also the author of the new book at war with ourselves, My Tour of Duty in the Trump

White House, and famously the book Their election of duty about the

Johnston administration and the war in Vietnam. We get into a lot of topics in

this podcast including his book, his time in the Trump administration, as well as issues

that are going on around the world like the war in Gaza, among other forefronts of violence.

Without further ado, I give you retired Lieutenant General, HR McMaster. General McMaster,

welcome to the Dispatch Podcast.

Hey, Jamie, I'm a fan.

Great to be with you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it. I spent the last two days reading, I should say, listening to your book.

So I've gone through the whole book.

You open up your book by saying that you're not trying to win

fans who are anti-Trump people or people who are pro-Trump people, you're telling the facts

that they are and this book may not satisfy either.

Explain exactly what you meant by that and maybe the pressure that or the expectations that some people might have

when a former official writes a book. Well, James, you know, on the dispatch period anybody, I mean the

vitriolic nature of our of our political discourse is I think just bad for our psychic and it's and it's bad. I think for governance is bad for choosing the best candidates for office. So what I try to do is just transcend it you

know to get out to get out of the mud and just try to tell the story from my

...