Mattis, Tillerson, Kelly and Cohn, tried to keep Trump from doing stupid and illegal things. Check out the book Trump and his Generals by Peter Bergen. It's also covered in A Very Stable Genius and some of the other books. McMasters could not brief Trump, who became resentful that McMasters knew more than he did about foreign policy and threat assessment. McMasters has a professorial style that really grated on someone as imbecilic as Trump.

McMasters is old school and I don't think he believed a president could be this obscenely dangerous. Like the others, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. But he should show more courage now, I agree with that part of your post.

Amazing how these big strong man wither at the thought of a nasty tweet from this cowardly moron Who has taken over as commander-in-chief.

Not a good position with global warming etal.

..but to the point is that I had just seen him afterwards on MSNBC refusing to make any comment on the Administration job he filled... It was not a military position and thus not a reason to refuse comment. We have endured similar behavior from Robert Mueller for instance and such behavior compounded through the many who have since refused to come forward or even answer questions about their publicly paid service...thus contributing greatly in my opinion to our eminent national peril..