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Trump Fires Bolton; Bolton Offered Resignation; Trump Irked over Camp David Meeting. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 10, 2019 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: So they can let those areas burn. But it is freaking people out.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: As it should be. I mean the video you brought is amazing.

Thank you so much, Bill.

WEIR: You're welcome.

BOLDUAN: Continue covering it because you are spearheading it. Thank you.

And thank you all so much for joining me. "INSIDE POLITICS" with John King starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS." I'm John King.

Dramatic, breaking news just as we begin the hour.

The president of the United States announcing on Twitter his national security adviser, John Bolton, is leaving. You see the tweet from the president right there. 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 adviser this week.

There have long been tensions between the president and his national security adviser, long been tensions between the national security adviser and the rest of the president' national security team, including the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

But the timing here is striking as the administration continues to try to work out its policy when it comes to Iran. Just moments ago the Israeli prime minister announcing his plans to greatly expand Israeli control, annex parts of the West Bank. So a dramatic foreign policy development from the president of the United States this morning as we try to get more on this breaking news story.

Here with me in studio to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson, Molly Ball with "Time," Heather Caygle with "Politico," and Vivian Salama with "The Wall Street Journal."

Let me start with you, Vivian.

We know there's been tensions for a long time. The White House has always spun this as the president likes creative tension. He likes this. Clearly his patience with John Bolton, who has been among the more hawkish advisers, has differed with the president on issues like Russia. Why now?

VIVIAN SALAMA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Well, in the last couple of days we've seen a lot of tension between President Trump's top advisers, specifically with this meeting that was supposed to take place a couple of days ago but was called off with regard to finding a peace plan for Afghanistan. John Bolton, according to my reporting, and as well as yours, your teams, that John Bolton was very much against the president meeting with the Taliban, as were a number of his advisers. He felt that this was not the approach and a lot of tension between his top advisers as to what the proper approach to the Afghanistan strategy should be.

But this is not now. President Trump has frequently cited the fact that John Bolton has what he calls strong views. He is a hawk, and President Trump does like the differing opinions. But a number of policies that just didn't come through in terms of his Venezuela strategy. John Bolton was really, really aggressive trying to find a solution, get Venezuela's President Maduro out. President Trump growing impatient with that strategy.

Also Iran. President Trump wanted to take a more moderate approach to Iran. John Bolton, always a hawk on Iran, wanted to take some military action a couple of months ago when they shot down a drone over the gulf.

And so a number of different foreign policy issues where John Bolton obviously seeing differently to the president. This was very dramatic because, as much as we've known there's tension inside the White House, we didn't necessarily think that this was imminent. And, here we go.

KING: And that is the question of timing.

Let's get straight to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who is at the White House.

Kaitlan, an odd fit from day one, but why now?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the question, John. And let me remind the viewers that John Bolton is supposed to participate in a briefing here at the White House in about an hour and a half. This was going to be on this executive order that they were signing on counterterrorism. He was going to appear alongside the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, but now the president has announced that he has fired John Bolton.

What's striking, John, about the president's tweet here also is that typically the president will announce when somebody's leaving the White House, saying that they are leaving by choice. Like when Jim Mattis resigned in protest, the president and his officials framed it as a retirement initially. But this is the president stating pretty clearly that he has asked John Bolton to leave his position as national security adviser.

Now, this won't come as a huge surprise because there was a lot of infighting in the White House and just last week CNN reported on just how badly that infighting in the administration had come where Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John Bolton had gone several weeks recently without even speaking to each other. That had changed a little bit to where they were not speaking outside of formal meetings. A big change in that relationship that you used to see.

But, also, a lot of this had to do with John Bolton as an isolated national security adviser who was not only at odds with the president often at times, but also the secretary of state, who is highly favored by the president, and even the chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney.

We also reported on this breakdown in the NSC staff in the West Wing staff.

So this is substantial, though people did see this coming for some time because the divisions just seem to be too strong in the West Wing for John Bolton to make it much longer. But we should note that John Bolton and his people weren't exactly sure when his time would come, whether or not he would be fired or whether or not he would be able to hang around in this administration.

And when we reported last week that John Bolton had his eyes on Mike Pompeo's job as secretary of state, his aides did not push back on that, John.

KING: And to that point, Kaitlan Collins, come back to us as the reporting continues throughout the hour, as we are sure it will.

[12:05:00]

Let's go to CNN's Kylie Atwood. She's at the State Department.

Kylie, Kaitlan, at the White House, just mentioning, a, the plans the secretary of state and the national security adviser were supposed to be side by side today. And, b, also mentioning as part of that, the long simmering, long running tensions between the two of them.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: That's right. So even though these two leaders in Trump's national security team are ideologically aligned, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser, who is now leaving the administration, John Bolton, there has been simmering tensions, as Kaitlan referenced, between the two for months now. And we have reported on that extensively.

We know that there has been instances in which National Security Adviser John Bolton has actually asked for intelligence on North Korea, which is an issue that Secretary Pompeo had owned and not shared that intelligence with Pompeo, using it as leverage in conversations when he is speaking with President Trump to try and push forward his agenda.

Now, we know National Security Adviser Bolton is an Iran hawk. He wanted to be the one, he was pushing President Trump to take a strike on Iran earlier this year. President Trump decided not to do that.

There's also been a breakdown between the president and his national security adviser when it comes to other issues. Venezuela is one of them with Bolton pushing for a harder stance on Venezuela. And some of what he was trying to push forward not coming yet to fruition.

Clearly with him leaving, it's going to be a question mark in terms of who comes into that role, because this is something that we weren't expecting today. We knew that there were tensions. We knew that President Trump had grown increasingly frustrated with Bolton, specifically during a recent trip to the U.K. It was National Security Adviser John Bolton that made the first trip to visit with the new leadership under Johnson, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and it was not the other U.S. officials who were there meeting with him. So Bolton was trying to get out ahead, but clearly President Trump has grown frustrated in the instances where he has gone out ahead of the president and is asking him to leave.

We're waiting for some responses from the State Department in terms of how they are going to respond to this and what it means for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he assumes even more control over the national security agenda of this administration.

KING: Kylie Atwood, come back to us again if there is more reporting.

And you mention Secretary of State Pompeo assuming more control. There's also a question whether to whether Secretary Pompeo may leave in the coming months to run for a Senate seat open in his home state of Kansas.

I just want to go back, for those of you who may be joining us a little late at the top of the hour, the president of the United States announcing on Twitter, just moments ago, his national security adviser, John Bolton, is out. Here's how the president did it, in this tweet. 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 adviser next week.

John Bolton came in after Henry -- H.R. McMaster left the White House. Secretary Pompeo, of course, replacing Secretary Tillerson at the Defense Department. Secretary Esper replaces James Mattis. There's been a lot of turnover in the president's foreign policy team.

I believe we have on the phone Aaron David Miller, our CNN diplomatic analyst, former State Department negotiator in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Aaron, more turnover. What does it mean? AARON DAVID MILLER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST (via telephone): You

know, two secretaries of state, including the shortest tenured secretary of state in the modern history of the republic, Rex Tillerson, and three national security advisers in three years during a period of incredible consequence in American foreign policy, disruption, dysfunction and misdirection in the nation's foreign policy.

I suspect, given the harshness of this tweet, compared with so many of the more gentle letdowns that the president sets the tone in dismissing his senior officials, that Bolton must not have simply disagreed with the president. He must have pushed some red line and pushed it hard. That's number one.

Number two, the president's political advisers, who knows who is whispering in his ear on this one, may simply have said that there's too much broken crockery. Pompeo, who is a keeper, assuming he decides to stay, is a much better Trump whisperer than John Bolton. And I think that -- it's an extraordinary having watched this for 25 years, played a part in this movie, John, it's an extraordinary series of scenes that we're witnessing.

KING: You mentioned the tone and you're absolutely right, the president normally finds, both for the person leaving and for himself, the spinning of not -- that this is not chaos, a more gentle way of saying goodbye to somebody. This is not a gentle. This is a slam the door on the way out.

You know John Bolton. I remember him from the George W. Bush administration. He is known, a, for being polarizing, b, for being very brittle at times, if you will, in his relationships. But, c, and importantly, he's also known as a survivor because of his ability to work the system behind the scenes, if you will, to be a bureaucratic survivor and, in fact, sometimes to work the bureaucracy to do things that maybe others at the table didn't want to happen.

[12:10:12]

Is that what you're pointing at here?

MILLER: Well, it's true except, you know, Bolton's masterful manipulation of bureaucracy at I watched it up close during the first Bush administration, occurred, you know, not in a galaxy far, far away with respect to basic rules of diplomacy. They occurred in a system which was relatively predictable. This is not predictable. You have a mercurial, idiosyncratic president who acts largely on the basis of domestic politics, his ego and his personal sensibilities.

I think this was not an environment in which -- that played to Bolton's strength, clearly. And I really do believe that Pompeo had a much better read on how to handle the president. Bolton pushed John, and I suspect on this one he pushed one bridge too far.

KING: And, to that point, Pompeo has been able to be disagree -- to disagree with the president without being disagreeable. John Bolton clearly, who has more proximity, probably sees the president more often -- definitely sees the president more often. Maybe that prickly nature became too much.

Back to CNN's Kaitlan Collins at the White House for more.

Kaitlan, what are you learning?

COLLINS: Now, John, Stephanie Grisham, the press secretary, just made brief statements to some reporters on the firing of John Bolton, including telling my colleague Boris Sanchez, the tweet said everything. She said he, meaning the president, didn't like a lot of his policies and they disagreed.

Of course, John, everyone will tell you that is the understatement of the year on just how much the president and John Bolton disagreed on things. The question is going to be, why now? Because the president and John Bolton have gone back and forth on several national security and foreign policy issues over the last year. The question is, what changed?

You've got to look at that discussion that the president made pretty abruptly to host and then, of course, cancel a meeting with the leaders of the Taliban at Camp David, which we reported yesterday that there was severe internal pushback to that and a lot of it came from John Bolton, the national security adviser, who had been beamed into this meeting that the president had with his national security team the Friday before Labor Day, because Bolton was still in Europe. So he wasn't present for that meeting, and that's a meeting where essentially it first came to fruition, the president's idea of hosting these Taliban leaders at Camp David.

Now, the national security adviser wasn't in Washington for the next several days as the president made these plans with several other people to host them there. And, of course, he was one of the leading figures pushing back on not only the idea of these Taliban peace talks, believing essentially that the Taliban got too much leverage, but also he was highly against the idea of the president inviting the leaders of the Taliban, not only on U.S. soil, but at Camp David. The president did not like these reports that he was facing pushback from John Bolton over this, and that has surely got to be one of the major points in this firing that you're seeing today.

KING: Kaitlan Collins, appreciate more breaking news from the White House. Again, come back to us with more reporting.

John Bolton, who always likes to be part of any debate about John Bolton, saying this moments ago on Twitter. I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, let's talk about it tomorrow. So a different tone there as we come back into the room.

The president says, I informed John Bolton last night his services were no longer necessary. John Bolton saying, I offered to resign last night and the president said let's talk about it this morning.

Whatever your views of John Bolton, the national security adviser, whatever your views of John Bolton and his foreign policy views, if you're familiar with the Fox News Channel, John Bolton, after he left the Bush administration, is a communicator. He knows how to use platforms and the media to make his case, whether you like it or not.

MOLLY BALL, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear more from John Bolton. He is someone who, as you say, likes to express himself. I mean this -- this was always an awkward fit, I think, Bolton and Trump. They clearly came from different perspectives.

If you recall when Trump went to North Korea I believe the first time, the North Koreans issued a blistering statement aimed at Bolton specifically. They saw him as the most antagonistic voice within the administration to their aims. And so Bolton is a very interesting figure, as you mentioned, adept at working the bureaucracy, and in part people fear him because he is so effective, because he has such a clearly defined ideological world view and is so good at finding the levers of power in order to get those kinds of things done. So I wouldn't be surprised to find out there is much more to the story than a simple, I asked him for his resignation.

There clearly was some debate that triggered this. We know that they were arguing about the Afghanistan issue over the past week. And I will certainly be interested to find out what really happened on that.

KING: It's a great point, though, because you mentioned yet another example. Is this just the straw that broke the -- John Bolton's back, or was there some specific trigger in the sense that North Korea -- he didn't want the president talking to North Korea. When North Korea started lobbing missiles again, he was more of a hawk saying, see, I told you so, they're never going to come around. The president says, I want to sit down with President Rouhani of Iran. John Bolton says, no, no, no, that's the evil empire, never talk to them. The Afghanistan talks break down.

The question is, is this just cumulative or was there something more specific, more recent, maybe just Afghanistan?

[12:15:04]

Because the president has always said, until he tires of it, that I like the chaos. That you all -- you in the media says it's chaos. I like it. I like when everybody's in a room screaming at me. They all have different opinions. I decide.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: But in some ways I think John Bolton, as you say, I mean, was very, I think, public about the disagreement, right? Even if you think about North Korea, when the president announced on Twitter that he was in -- you know, he wanted to go to the DMZ and meet with Kim Jong-un. John Bolton didn't show up, right? He had this meeting off in Mongolia. So it was very clear that he was going to stay true to his beliefs, which are really kind of, I think, he's a bedrock Republican, right, or (INAUDIBLE) Republican, a Republican's Republican in terms of foreign policy. A real hawk.

So I think, as you say, it was always an odd fit. Like what -- you know, it seems like he sort of got the job because he was on Fox so much and then Bannon sort of brought him into the circle. And I expect that he'll use that platform again to really, I think, reinforce the Republican Party's views on foreign policy, which are very much at odds with the way this president is conducting foreign policy.

KING: Right.

SALAMA: To a certain degree also John Bolton has his own brand within the Republican Party and certain policies that President Trump was willing to pursue, including talking to Kim Jong-un, including talking to President Rouhani of Iran. That really violated who he is and what he's kind of created as who -- as this image of himself. And so, you know, for him to kind of be in that atmosphere, for him to take part in those talks, it really violated the name and the reputation that he has built up over these years. And so it was really a conflict from day one for him of whether or not he stays or goes.

The other issue is that President Trump is someone who thrives on personal connections with people. He likes to have -- you know, he has that with Secretary Pompeo. They have a really good relationship. He likes them, the guy.

John Bolton was not someone that he had that national -- natural dynamic with. And that was a problem with his predecessor, H.R. McMaster, too, where they just didn't really mesh. They didn't have chemistry with each other. And for President Trump that's really important in his advisers.

HENDERSON: It's not really chemistry, no.

KING: Now you're -- now you're looking for just the context. Now you're looking for your fourth national security adviser.

SALAMA: Absolutely.

KING: John Bolton was number three.

And, to that point, John Bolton, if you're a Liz Cheney in Congress, if you're Mitch McConnell in Congress and you get a little off the rails about what the president is saying about the Taliban or about Russia, John Bolton has been one of their conduits. A little less so now that Mike Pompeo is at the State Department, because he is one of them. He's a former member of Congress. He's more in the traditional, the hawkish but Republican mainstream where the president has never been, has never been on any foreign policy issue, even if you bring like trade into the -- trade, the NATO alliance, you bring other issues into the national -- the broader definition of national security. The president has been the outlier in his own party essentially trying to pull it in his direction.

HEATHER CAYGLE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "POLITICO": And I think, you know, now Pompeo has a lot more power, obviously. We saw that. They clashed. Bolton's gone. Pompeo moves up. But I think Republicans on The Hill, like you mentioned, knows how to talk to Pompeo and Pompeo knows how to talk to Trump and convey that message in a way that Bolton didn't. He will disagree with the president, but in a gentler way. And I think Trump is often more likely to listen to differing opinions the way that you word them, right? He's more open to them. And so I think Republicans on The Hill, a lot who were uneasy with John Bolton, are feeling a little bit relieved that Pompeo is still there and now we're -- they're all waiting to see whether he leaves to run for the Senate or not, because then who becomes your conduit?

KING: Right.

Rand Paul -- again, this is interesting. John Bolton is a hawk. John Bolton has talked about -- well, he was on Fox News, maybe military action against North Korea, maybe military action against Iran.

Rand Paul, more in the less isolationist, the more, you know, stay away from the world, don't get -- meddle in the world's problems, tweeting this out. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, 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.

And in that context the endless wars gets back to the original big -- the original question about the timing here. The most recent dustup has been the president's plans and then canceled abruptly to bring the Taliban, who gave safe harbor to al Qaeda in Afghanistan, to bring the Taliban to Camp David on the week of 9/11 to try to finalize a peace deal and to try to bring the Afghan government along, which wants no part of this because they have, obviously, no trust and no relationship with the Taliban.

That blows up. The president pulls the plug on his own plan over the disagreement of -- of Bolton, forgive me, and the disagreement of Mike Pence. The president wants to do this. Then he blows it up. And now he's looking for a new national security adviser.

HENDERSON: That's right. And in some way it's Donald Trump's instinct to conduct foreign policy by photo op, right? Even if you think about what happened with North Korea, a big photo op there. Not many results. I mean, if anything, they're probably further along in terms of their nuclear weapons capabilities. And here, the same thing, bringing the Taliban to Camp David. Imagine this sort of photo op of that. And, you know, obviously Mike Pence and lots of other Republicans in particular, Liz Cheney, very much against that, saying, this is not something you do, period, but certainly not something you do in the days before the anniversary of 9/11.

[12:20:06]

SALAMA: At this point it's going to be interesting to see who comes in, in his place, because President Trump at this point, again, like you say, it's -- we're on his fourth national security adviser. Chemistry being very important to him. A lot of people gunning for a job that's in a high national -- position with regard to national security. A Senator Tom Cotton, who has eyed a number of positions within the administration, Rand Paul, who kind of volunteered to go and be an emissary or an envoy to Iran.

And so it's going to be very interesting in the coming weeks to see really who will be willing to take the job because you're in the line of fire when you're the national security adviser. President Trump, obviously, has very strong but also very unconventional views when it comes to foreign policy and national security and so you have to be someone who's willing to kind of go with the flow and take the hits as they come.

KING: And over the years, some people in that job have been very high profile, like a John Bolton. Others have been more behind the scenes as the coordinator. That was the original description of the job as someone who would coordinate and then bring the advice of the secretary of state, the secretary of the Treasury, the Pentagon, bring it to the president and say, here are all your options, sir. So you can do it any way. We will see how this plays out.

Or, again, there was supposed to be a White House briefing today with Secretary Mnuchin of the Treasury, Pompeo of State, and John Bolton, the national security adviser. John Bolton is now out. We're waiting to hear from Secretary Pompeo.

Secretary Mnuchin is up on Capitol Hill. He had two very important words when asked about this, no comment. Clearly being a little careful there. Secretary Mnuchin himself someone who's gone in and out of the president's good graces.

The president saying, John Bolton disagreed with me too often. I decided he had to go. Just a couple of months ago, the president described it differently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He has strong views on things, but that's OK. I actually temper John, which is pretty amazing, isn't it? Nobody thought that was going to -- I'm the one that tempers him. But that's OK. I have different sides. I mean I have John Bolton and I have other people that are a little more dovish than him. And, ultimately, I make the decision. No, I get -- I like John. I get very good advice from John.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Who are -- who are the other people? We know Secretary Pompeo. Who -- I don't know that I would describe him as dovish.

HENDERSON: Right.

KING: His record in Congress certainly was more hawkish.

HENDERSON: Hawkish.

KING: Now sometimes you become secretary of state. He was the CIA director before that. Sometimes you change jobs, you get access to more information, you can change. Everybody changes in life.

But who? Who? We have a relatively new secretary of defense, Secretary Esper. No criticism of Secretary Esper, but not the experience in the world that General Mattis had. HENDERSON: Right.

KING: As someone who had been a combatant and a commander in war time.

Who? As the president looks to bring in a new voice, if he's looking for balance?

BALL: Yes, that's the -- that's why I think this choice is going to be so interesting because the president did come in on a number of issues with these views that were different than traditional Republican views, but his cabinet and his administration have largely been stocked by the Republican establishment. So we've seen, whether it's on trade or on foreign policy or even on immigration, he's sometimes had to push against the members of his own administration to enforce what he's sort of instinctively thinks.

And it's interesting to hear everybody sort of talk about Trump's instincts. And I think that that's a symptom of the lack of focus that he's brought to this administration, that he -- we do think he has these instructs because of the stuff that he says here and there, but he doesn't have the focus to surround himself with people who share his views or to even moderate these discussions of a team of rivals and shape them into a coherent policy.

Instead, we get this uncertainty. We get this all over the map. We get these debates that go back and forth and never get resolved. And so, you know, you have people like Bolton, people like Mattis who come into the administration thinking, well, this is kind of a formalist situation. I can shape it. I can push it in the direction that I think is right. I can keep bad things from happening. And I can maybe bend the president toward my views. And over and over they each reach a point where they have -- they have fail to do that or they think they can no longer do that. And that leaves the president with yet another vacancy.

KING: Right, or they don't do what the president keeps asking them to do. They just keep trying to run out the clock and the president finally loses patience.

I'm going to take a quick break. When we come back, though, more on this big, breaking news story, the president of the United States deciding his national security adviser, John Bolton, must go. Bolton controversial, often prickly as well. Some new reporting when we come back on just why the president decided enough.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:28:58]

KING: Some new CNN reporting now on this hour's dramatic breaking news story. The president of the United States announcing on Twitter his national security adviser, John Bolton, is leaving. The president says he asked for Bolton's resignation. Bolton, in a tweet after that, said, no, he offered his resignation last night.

We'll continue to try to get more details there. But as to why now? CNN producer and reporter Kevin Liptak reporting this, President Trump getting more and more irritated with Bolton over the past several months for his statements on Iran, Venezuela and now Afghanistan. The president, Liptak's reporting says, no longer believed he could advocate, meaning Bolton could, for the president's agenda. The president also felt Bolton wasn't a forceful enough advocate for him in the media. We know the president watches that quite closely. And when he did make appearances, he wasn't convincing enough since it was evident. He didn't believe in some of the president's foreign policy goals. That reporting from our White House producer Kevin Liptak.

Let's get some perspective now from CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson. He is live in London.

Nic, this is a big time in the world. The Israeli prime minister making a big announcement today. Where you are in London, the new prime minister facing defeats as he tries to navigate his early days in his administration and get the Brexit deal done.

[12:30:04]

Venezuela, Afghanistan and beyond. Friend and foe around the world have asked from day one of the administration, who's

[12:30:00]