understood about selflessness. but there s an asymmetry and steve bannon is sort of on that i mean, obviously mcmaster has a reputation intact, but donald trump has he anil lighted 16 primary opponents with his asymmetrical ways. mcmaster did something on sunday as well in addition to the comments that he made regarding bannon. two things, one, north korea, even though i think he s wrong that we can t deter north korea. mcmaster still made an argument in support of the president. i think president trump will respect that. the second thing was his statements on charlottesville were necessary. some argue he broke a little bit with the president by saying it was a form of terrorism. but i still think he didn t throw the president under the bus. he was well served by mcmast r. and that s what the president needs. i want to say this. all this pafls intrigue is quite interesting, but for an administration, it s disabling. it s disabling when it s a
it s not like europe is going to remain stagnant. they were concerned that china would step into this void. we have to go, andrea. really quickly, does this is this any indication that tillerson and this strong team has to get through bannon first? yes. and initially tillerson, one of the reasons i believe he held back from us and the press corps and not wanting to do briefings, he wanted to figure out his moorings, develop a relationship with a president he did not know and make sure he was not being sidelined by the bannons and flynns. flynn is gone. he thought bannon was taken down from the national security council and he and others, obviously mcmaster and mattis, had this concord. now bannon is coming in from the inside and i think they ve got a whole new challenge. he has to figure out his relationship with president bannon. andrea mitchell, thank you very much. we ll go back live to keir