Sources Say McMaster Called Trump a 'Dope'

A charged allegation from five sources: National Security Adviser HR McMaster, while at dinner with the CEO of tech company Oracle, insulted President Trump's intelligence, the sources say. They tell BuzzFeed McMaster was meeting with Safra Catz, who served on Trump's transition team and whose name has come up in reference to a few possible jobs in the Trump administration, when he called the president an "idiot" and a "dope" and said he was as smart as a "kindergartner." Four of the sources say Catz told them about the conversation directly; a sixth source who was not familiar with that particular conversation said McMaster has made similar comments about Trump's intelligence—like saying the president isn't smart enough to understand the issues the National Security Council deals with—to him privately.

Both Oracle (in the form of the company's top DC operative, who was also at the dinner with McMaster) and the White House (in the form of a National Security Council spokesperson) strongly denied that McMaster made such comments, and the Oracle senior VP who spoke out says Catz agrees with him that "none of the statements attributed to General McMaster were said." Two sources, however, say administration officials threatened retaliation against several people who knew about the July dinner if they talked to BuzzFeed. Three of the sources say McMaster also spoke poorly of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner during the dinner; one says Catz called the conversation "so inappropriate it was jaw-dropping." Click for BuzzFeed's full piece. (More HR McMaster stories.)