By Michael A. Memoli

Tribune Washington Bureau

PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump named Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his new national security adviser Monday, replacing Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign last week.

McMaster, a career Army officer and strategist, is known as one of the military’s most prominent intellectuals.

“He is highly respected by everyone in the military, and we’re very honored to have him,” Trump said while seated in the living room of his Mar-a-Lago estate here next to McMaster, who was in uniform.

McMaster will take over a National Security Council that is short on staff and the subject of reports of internal turmoil. The president’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was given a seat on the council, a highly unusual move for a political appointee.

Bannon was an architect of the temporary ban on entry into the U.S. for refugees and travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries. Its ad hoc rollout sowed chaos at airports around the country before it was stopped by the courts. Trump is expected to order a revised travel ban as soon as this week.

Flynn’s ouster came after reports emerged that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his discussions in December with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. about impending sanctions by the Obama administration over its conclusion that Russia had meddled in the election.

Before McMaster, Trump had offered the job to retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward, who made it known that he was concerned Trump would not give him enough autonomy.

The White House has pushed back on reports that Bannon or others would interfere with the job. Trump “gave full authority for McMaster to hire whatever staff he sees fit,” spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One as Trump flew back to Washington, D.C., after the long weekend, his third at Mar-a-Lago in the first month of his presidency.

McMaster, who has served since 2014 as the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center at Fort Eustis in Virginia, is perhaps best known as the author of a 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty,” that explores the level of military responsibility for U.S. failure during the Vietnam War.

The book argues that military leaders should have confronted President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as it became clear that their plans, or lack thereof, weren’t working.

“What a privilege it is to be able to continue serving our nation,” McMaster said alongside Trump. “I’m grateful to you for that opportunity, and I look forward to joining the national security team and doing everything that I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people.”

Trump’s choice was immediately praised by lawmakers in both parties, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has quickly emerged as an intraparty critic of the president.

“He knows how to succeed,” McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said of McMaster. “I give President Trump great credit for this decision, as well as his national security Cabinet choices. I could not imagine a better, more capable national security team than the one we have right now.”

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Pence also played a role in the pick, Trump said. The two spoke earlier Monday by phone as the vice president wrapped up a trip to Europe in which he reassured nervous allies about the U.S. commitment to NATO and addressed Flynn’s ouster for the first time.

“I was disappointed to learn that the facts that had been conveyed to me by Gen. Flynn were inaccurate,” he said Monday, adding that he had fully supported Trump’s decision to seek Flynn’s resignation.

“It was handled properly and in a timely way, and I have great confidence in the national security team of this administration going forward,” Pence added.

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Trump also said that John Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, who had interviewed for the job, will be asked to serve the administration in an unspecified capacity.

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