“Why the hell?”
Trump chooses – and insults the called one
04/12/2025 – 3:59 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
Donald Trump confuses his ex-consultant HR McMaster with the governor of South Carolina. Trump should be freaked out on the phone.
Donald Trump is said to accidentally called his former national security advisor HR McMaster in early March and apparently confused him with South Carolina’s governor. The US broadcaster CBS News reports.
McMaster was part of Trump’s government team for only 13 months in 2017, was considered one of the temperate voices in the White House and was later released in unrest. Since then, the ratio has been broken. On March 2, Trump had publicly referred to him as “weak and completely ineffective losers” after McMaster once again expressed criticism of his Russia policy.
The call was all the more surprising for McMaster on the following day. A voice from the White House asked him to have a conversation with the ex-president. When Trump finally reported, he greeted him with the words “Henry …”. McMaster immediately recognized the confusion and pointed out the president: “Mr. President, this is Hr McMaster”. (“Mr. President, here is HR McMaster.”) According to several sources, Trump reacted horrified: “Why the fuck would I talk to hr McMaster?” (“Why should I talk to HR McMaster?”). After that, he is said to have insulted the former consultant again and ended the conversation.
According to CBS news, Trump originally wanted to speak to Henry McMaster, the Republican governor of South Carolina. An employee is said to have confused the two men and put the call to the wrong number. It remained unclear who was responsible for the error. A spokesman for the White House rejected a statement.
Trump-related circles continued their criticism of McMaster after the phone call. Trump’s communication director Steven Cheung said: “HR McMaster has made himself completely ridiculous, and his third -class book – which is now located in the Ramsch shelf of the fiction of a cheap bookshop – is full of lies in a unsuccessful attempt to restore his bold call.”
McMaster himself did not comment on the incident. In his new book and in an interview with “60 Minutes”, however, he had once again suffered sharp criticism of Trump’s foreign policy course. Among other things, he accused the president of being manipulated by Wladimir Putin.
