Trump turns to his generals in times of trouble

President Trump second-guessed generals on the campaign trail, but in office he has relied heavily on their counsel, with the ascension of retired Gen. John Kelly to White House chief of staff serving as the latest example.

"If anybody can create discipline out of the chaos, it is someone like the general," said David Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Akron who has written about the evolution of the chief of staff role. "He's used to the chain of command, a military org chart. But only if he has truly been empowered to regulate access to the president, including the president's children."

Trump told reporters in January that he would let one retired general, Defense Secretary James Mattis, "override" him on torture. He later gave Mattis authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan. A source close to Trump praised the president for choosing "arguably the greatest general of his generation" to run the Defense Department.

Another general, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, has been credited — or blamed, depending on your perspective — for Trump's taking a more interventionist stance in Syria than during the campaign.

Yet another general, McMaster's predecessor as national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has been at the center of the Russia investigation that has bedeviled the president the whole time he has been in office. A lot of the scrutiny around Trump personally regarding Russia stems from his reported insistence that investigators let Flynn go, the main contention made by fired FBI Director James Comey.