He had first threatened to quit the previous fall after a particularly off-the-rails Trump phone call in which he disparaged President Emmanuel Macron of France on November 27. McMaster was so offended that he muttered something intemperate, as one of those present recalled, and walked out of the Oval Office. He agreed to remain only after John Kelly followed him back to his office and brandished a copy of McMaster’s book, Dereliction of Duty, about the Vietnam-era generals who had failed to offer the honest counsel that might have prevented a debacle. “You wrote the book!” Kelly exclaimed.
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