Trump names outspoken general as new national security adviser

US President Donald Trump has named Lt Gen HR McMaster as his national security adviser.

He will replace Lt Gen Michael Flynn who was fired after just three weeks and three days in the job.

A lieutenant general with the US Army, HR McMaster served in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he worked on a government anti-corruption drive.

BBC reports that Mr Trump’s first choice, retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward, turned down the role, citing “personal reasons”.

Announcing the appointment at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, President Trump called Gen McMaster “a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience”.

“He is highly respected by everybody in the military,” he said.

Gen Flynn stepped down after misleading Vice-President Mike Pence over his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the US.

Keith Kellogg, who took over as acting national security adviser after the resignation, will now serve as the National Security Council chief of staff.

Gen McMaster is known for expressing his views and questioning authority. Time magazine named him as one of its 100 most influential people in the world in 2014, saying he “might be the 21st Century Army’s pre-eminent warrior-thinker”.

Thanking the US president for the new position on Monday, Gen McMaster said: “I would just like to say what a privilege it is to be able to continue serving our nation and I’m grateful to you for that opportunity.

“I look forward to joining the National Security team and doing everything I can to advance and protect the interest of the American people.”

Earlier President Trump had been forced to deny accusations that he was struggling to find a replacement for Gen Flynn, telling reporters on Air Force One on Saturday that he had “many, many that want the job”.

The other candidates in the running were Robert Caslen, an Army lieutenant general who is the superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point, and career diplomat John Bolton, who served as George W Bush’s ambassador to the UN from August 2006 to December 2006.

Mr Trump held interviews with the four men at Mar-a-Lago where he spent the third weekend in a row.

He has called Mar-a-Lago, a private property, the “Southern White House”.