Trump Says He Fired National Security Adviser John Bolton, Who Claims He Quit
The high rate of churn in Donald Trump's administration continued on Tuesday, when the president unexpectedly announced that he had fired his National Security Advisor, John Bolton.
Trump tweeted, "I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week." That is apparently the official statement on the matter, since the White House told reporters that comments are "not going beyond the tweet."
The fact that Trump hired Bolton in the first place was a surprise: Bolton is one of the most prominent proponents of the U.S. militarily intervention, while Trump has long seemed to favor pulling U.S. forces out of combat zones. The pair did agree on Iran—and a New Yorker profile on Bolton reported that when he moved into his office, he hung a framed copy of Trump's executive order nullifying President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran. Also, Trump apparently hated Bolton's signature walrus-style mustache, which clashed with Trump's ideal of a clean-cut macho figure in charge of national security. In fact, the mustache was the reason Trump passed over Bolton in the first place, though he eventually named Bolton after the previous adviser, H.R. McMaster, stepped down last April.
In something of a you-can't-fire-me-I-quit exchange, Bolton countered Trump's version of his departure from the administration. Less than 15 minutes after Trump's announcement, Bolton tweeted, "I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, 'Let's talk about it tomorrow.'" Based on the location stamp, Bolton tweeted this while still inside the White House on Tuesday afternoon.
Minutes after that, CNN's Robert Costa tweeted that Bolton had texted him directly to emphasize the same point, writing, "Let’s be clear, I resigned, having offered to do so last night." And Costa wasn't alone: Bolton was texting Fox News anchors as they were live on air. Brian Kilmeade paused to read the text, saying, "John Bolton just texted me, just now, he's watching. He said, 'let's be clear, I resigned.'"
Despite making "you're fired" his catchphrase on his reality show The Apprentice, Trump is reportedly non-confrontational in real life, especially when it comes to dismissing people. Famously, James Comey found out that Trump had fired him by seeing "COMEY FIRED" in the chyron of a news show.
Republican senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, cheered the firing, saying, "I commend @realDonaldTrump for this necessary action. The President has great instincts on foreign policy and ending our endless wars. He should be served by those who share those views." Rand, a vocal libertarian who frequently criticized Bolton's support for the U.S. intervening foreign governments, told CNN, "The chances of war worldwide go greatly down." He added that Bolton "has a naive view that believes we should recreate the world in our own image by toppling countries by violent overthrow and somehow democracy will prevail."
More establishment Republicans were bigger fans of Bolton, though. Utah senator Mitt Romney told the New York Times, "I'm very, very unhappy to hear that he is leaving. It’s a huge loss for the administration and for the nation." When Times congressional correspondent Nicholas Fandos asked who Romney would like to see as Bolton's replacement, he answered, "John Bolton."
However it shook out, the split between Trump and Bolton has been months in the making. As NPR reports, Bolton's departure comes just days after a U.S.-orchestrated peace talk between the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan feel through, a process that Trump worked hard to exclude Bolton from. Bolton was also one of the prime drivers behind the U.S. support of a coup in Venezuela, backing opposition leader Juan Guaidó in his failed attempts to oust president Nicolás Maduro. Trump later complained that his advisers misled him about how easy and quick it would be to depose Maduro.
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Originally Appeared on GQ
