McFaul: It Would Be a 'Real Crisis' If Trump Fires McMaster

It would be a "shock and a real crisis" if President Donald Trump would turn on national security adviser H.R. McMaster and fire him over his conflicts with chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said Monday.

"I worked at the National Security Council for three years," McFaul told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "You cannot have people on that staff — the senior staff is small — that don't support the views of the national security adviser. And I would just say, it would be a shock and a real crisis if the president now turned on H.R. Mcmaster and fired him because of some nationalist who thinks that they know foreign policy better."

The president's foreign policy team is strong, and it has the right views at a "really dangerous time in American foreign policy," said McFaul. "We need the best and the brightest running the show right now."

McFaul has often been critical of Trump, but saluted him on Twitter for the United Nations' Security Council's 15-0 vote on North Korean sanctions. He said Monday such resolutions don't solve military problems, but they are still a "good step in the right direction."

"It's hard to get the Russians and Chinese to sign up to Security Council resolutions on anything, let alone North Korea, so it's an achievement, and Ambassador [Nikki] Haley should get credit too," said McFaul. "I think she's done a very commendable job as a U.N. ambassador."

McFaul said he is still worried about Trump, and that he is "not in alignment with his team.

"To mess with this team right now, I think, would send a very bad signal to our allies both in Europe and Asia," the former ambassador said. "He needs to keep this team in place."

McFaul also on Monday criticized the launch of "Trump TV," being shown on Trump's Facebook page.

"More than most Americans, I have watched a lot of state-run TV," said McFaul. "I went to the Soviet Union for the first time in 1983. It's my job to follow that country and many other communist countries. It just was a very weird, eerie thing to praise the president. He does no wrong. The president is in charge of all good things that happen in the country."

He said he finds it disturbing that the United States has a president with his own television station.

"I thought that was what the White House communications was for, but these are new times, so we use new technologies," said McFaul.