Herbert Raymond McMaster, a retired United States Army lieutenant general who served as the 25th National Security Advisor from 2017 to 2018, claimed in his new memoir how Russian President Vladimir Putin influenced former President Donald Trump during his time in office. He also claimed that Putin exploited Trump’s ego for his own advantage.

All these bold claims appeared in McMaster’s book ‘At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House’, which was published by HarperCollins and will hit the bookstalls on August 27.

The Guardian obtained a copy and outlined McMaster’s account of the relationship between Putin and Trump. “Putin, a ruthless former KGB operator, played to Trump’s ego and insecurities with flattery,” McMaster writes.

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“Putin had described Trump as ‘a very outstanding person, talented, without any doubt’ and Trump had revealed his vulnerability to this approach, his affinity for strongmen, and his belief that he alone could forge a good relationship with Putin,” McMaster continues.

“Like his predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Trump was overconfident in his ability to improve relations with the dictator in the Kremlin. The fact that most foreign policy experts in Washington advocated for a tough approach to the Kremlin seemed only to drive the president to the opposite approach,” he writes.

McMaster clarifies that Trump developed his obsession with the Mueller report, which investigated Russian interference in the US presidential election in 2016. This fixation made it difficult to discuss anything related to Putin or Russia with him.

According to McMaster, Trump linked every topic involving Russia to the report and to accusations from Democrats and other critics that his campaign, and Trump himself, had colluded with Russia’s disinformation efforts to influence the election.

Although special counsel Mueller found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy, he found out that the Trump campaign tried to conceal its contacts with Russian officials by hiding the truth several times. Further, Trump tried to interfere with or obstruct the investigation as well.