The Financial Times, Washington Post, CNN, and other news outlets are reporting that Harward turned down the offer in part because Trump wouldn’t let him fire several officials who Flynn had hired for his staff and install his own team instead. This suggests that Trump is adamant on keeping certain people loyal to him—including Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland, a former Fox News commentator who Trump admired. The news reports don’t mention whether Harward made demands about Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief political strategist who wrote the executive order that placed himself on the NSC Principals Committee and has created a parallel NSC structure called the Strategic Initiatives Group, comprising a few extreme right-wing associates. But any serious person would insist on the dismantling of this weird group as another condition for taking the job.
CNN quoted one of Harward’s friends saying that, in mulling over the decision, he was persuaded most of all by the sheer dysfunction of Trump’s presidency, describing the job he was offered as “a **** sandwich.”
