The president is keeping his national security adviser in a state of limbo, acutely conscious that he could stay indefinitely or be dismissed any time in a tweet.

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster isn’t getting fired, he’s getting Tillersoned – kept in a state of perpetual limbo about his future in the administration, aware that his unpredictable boss could keep him around indefinitely or terminate him at a moment’s notice.

Like now-former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, whom the president dismissed earlier this week, McMaster has never clicked with the president, who prizes personal chemistry and likes to shoot the breeze. And as with the secretary of state, the president decided months ago amid disagreements over his Afghanistan strategy that McMaster wouldn’t be a permanent fixture in his administration.

What’s changed in recent days, according to a half-dozen White House aides and outside advisers familiar with the situation, is that White House chief-of-staff John Kelly has put increasing pressure on Trump to get rid of McMaster – and that’s made the president, who likes to be contrary and doesn’t mind frustrating his advisers, increasingly resistant to making a change.