What words the president uses from the podium tonight will give a hint about McMaster’s clout.
President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, advised him in a closed-door meeting last week to stop using a phrase that was a frequent refrain during the campaign: “radical Islamic terrorism.”
But the phrase will be in the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, according to a senior White House aide—even though McMaster reviewed drafts and his staff pressed the president’s chief speechwriter and senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, not to use it.
What the president decides to say in his address will be an early indication of McMaster’s clout within the administration. McMaster, a career officer, was brought in after the ouster of Trump’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn, an early and loyal Trump supporter who said violence was a feature of Islam.
With less than two weeks on the job, McMaster is still in the process of asserting himself in a West Wing, where the circle of aides who can influence the president nonetheless remains small.
In his first remarks to the National Security Council last week, McMaster told his new staff he considered the term “radical Islamic terrorism” unhelpful, according to a second White House aide. “Even a small change like referring to ‘radical Islamist terrorism’ would be an improvement, in his view,” said this aide.
“Islamist” typically describes fundamentalist supporters of Islam-based government and society, rather than implicitly encompassing all Muslims.
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McMaster, who has deep bkgd in counterinsurgency, pressed Trump to moderate lang on Islam. He won't in speech tonite https://t.co/YoajdbLg2A
— Eliana Johnson (@elianayjohnson) February 28, 2017
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