US President Donald Trump has suffered another setback after the man he picked to be his new National Security Adviser turned down the job.
Vice Admiral Robert Harward reportedly walked away from the position after President Trump refused to allow him to recruit his own team of deputies at the White House.
Meanwhile, Washington is reeling from the President's high-octane news conference on Thursday in which he berated the country's intelligence agencies and the news media for trying to discredit him.
Our Washington Correspondent is Simon Marks.
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It is not known whether Vice Admiral Robert Harward watched President Trump's news conference at the White House.
But within hours of it ending….he was terminating his conversation about becoming the President's next National Security Adviser.
The vacancy exists because President Trump fired Michael Flynn on Monday….more than two and half weeks after the White House learned General Flynn had himself become a national security risk.
President Trump, at his news conference, insisted that in conversations with the Russian Ambassador before the inauguration, General Flynn had done nothing wrong….apart, of course, from lying to the Vice President, Mike Pence.
And he denied instructing the General to talk about the time table to easing US sanctions against Moscow.
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The President's opprobrium at his press conference was reserved for two institutions.
First the intelligence agencies….he accuses them of illegally leaking information about the ongoing investigation into contacts top Trump aides may have had with the Russians during the election campaign.
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But that was nothing, compared to the President's fury at the news media.
Singling out networks, individual programs, specific reporters….for over an hour President Trump vented his spleen on the reporters who cover him.
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The response of the news media came moments after he walked away from the podium
CNN's Jake Tapper offered these thoughts to his audience.
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And over on usually-loyal Fox News, anchor Shepherd Smith was equally non-plussed.
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And yes, that was Fox News.
What Republicans up on Capitol Hill made of it….who knows.
But President Trump told reporters that he is uniquely in touch with the views of the public and will now start holding rallies to tell his supporters how he's spent his first weeks in office.
He called his administration a fine-tuned machine.
It'll be even better if he can find someone to take the position of National Security Adviser.
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