White House denies rumours of McMaster's impending exit
Rumours about the imminent departure of national security advisor McMaster from the White House have been denied by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said McMaster and the president have a good relationship.
Sanders tweeted on Thursday night saying: "Just spoke to @POTUS and Gen. H.R. McMaster - contrary to reports they have a good working relationship and there are no changes at the NSC."
The rumours of his ousting come after a series of departures from the inner circle of the Trump administration, the latest one being Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who was replaced this week.
According to the Washington Post, there were rumours from people close to the administration who said that President Donald Trump was displeased with McMaster.
In February 2018, Trump rebuked McMaster on Twitter for not defending him and his electoral victory in 2016 against allegations and heresay in the wake of the ongoing federal investigation of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign team during the last elections .
"General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked Hillary, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!" Trump wrote.
Speaking at a security conference in Germany last month, McMaster had said that evidence of Moscow's meddling the presidential contest was "incontrovertible".
According to Accendo Markets, those rumours had negatively impacted on the stock market.
"US sentiment is suffering from talk of yet another White House departure (Nat Sec Advisor McMaster?) to keep the revolving door spinning, and the Trump organisation being subpoenaed by Spec. Counsel Mueller about Russia, which remains in headlines for multiple reasons including a likely Putin re-election this weekend," their analysts said.
Conor Campbell, analyst at Spread Ex has also said that the Dow Jones "is looking worn out". The index is faced a flat start to the session and is currently up by 0.53%.