Trump said he was ready for a "historic" deal with China as the leaders kicked off their meeting and Xi told him "dialogue" was better than confrontation AFP / Brendan Smialowski
Former Trump national security adviser H.R. McMaster has written a new bookfilled with disparaging stories about his former boss, and the New York Times reports that it even features of a story of the former president being blatantly manipulated by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The incident in question came during a visit to China in November of 2017 in which McMaster tried to warn Trump against letting Xi make him stray from his prepared talking points.
Trump, however, had other ideas.
"In the Great Hall of the People, the president strayed from his talking points," according to the Times's report. "He agreed with Xi that military exercises in South Korea were 'provocative' and a 'waste of money' and suggested that China might have a legitimate claim to Japan’s Senkaku Islands. McMaster, his stomach sinking, passed a note to Gen. John Kelly, the chief of staff: Xi 'ate our lunch,' it read."
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McMaster also says that foreign leaders treated Trump like a "chump" and quickly discovered they could manipulate him by boosting his ego.
"Flattery and pomp from leaders like Xi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Russian president Vladimir V. Putin seem to have been all that was required to get in Trump’s good graces," writes the Times.
"In 2018, McMaster found Trump in the Oval Office scrawling a cheerful note to Putin across a New York Post article reporting that the Russian president had denigrated the American political system but called Trump a good listener. Like a child with his Christmas wish list, the leader of the free world asked McMaster to send it to the Kremlin."
Looking forward, writes the Times, McMaster questions whether the 78-year-old Trump is still able to "perform well the sometimes grueling job of president" and he notes that Trump seven years ago became "tired" by a 13-day trip to Asia.
