President Trump said Monday that retired Gen. H.R. McMaster will be his new national security adviser, replacing the dismissed Michael Flynn.
"You're going to do a great job," Trump told McMaster as he made the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
Trump also announced that Keith Kellogg — who had been the acting national security in the week since Flynn was fired — would be McMaster's chief of staff.
McMaster is the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, an internal think tank that looks at future threats and how to deal with them. He is also Deputy Commanding General, Futures, at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.
McMaster, viewed as one of the Army’s leading intellects, holds a doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He is a decorated combat veteran whose innovative leadership in counterinsurgency helped secure the restive city of Tal Afar in Iraq from Sunni insurgents in 2005.
The president also suggested that another finalist for the national security adviser's job — former U.N. ambassador John Bolton — would be also be hired for some kind of job.
"We'll be talking to John Bolton in a different capacity,"he said.
The moves come a week after Trump asked for Flynn's resignation for lying about the substance of a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
