President Trump said he fired National Security Advisor John Bolton today, announcing on Twitter that he “disagreed strongly” with the former UN ambassador’s positions.
Bolton, though, said he resigned.
The announcement came just 90 minutes before a scheduled White House briefing with Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Press were alerted to the briefing shortly before 11 a.m.
Trump is scheduled to have lunch with Vice President Mike Pence and then meet GOP congressional leaders later in the afternoon.
NBC News reported that both Bolton and Pence were opposed to Trump’s plan to invite the Taliban to Camp David, an idea raised in a Sept. 1 Situation Room meeting and scrapped this past weekend.
“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,” Trump tweeted at noon. “I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.”
Bolton tweeted 10 minutes later, “I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow.'”
Bolton was Trump’s third national security advisor, after Mike Flynn and H.R. McMaster. Keith Kellogg served in an acting role for a week in February 2017 after Flynn’s departure.
Before Trump’s announcement, Bolton tweeted, “As we reflect this week on the horrific 9/11 attack, it’s important to remember how far we’ve come in combatting radical Islamist terrorist groups but also how much work is left. We stand strong against regimes that sponsor terror & encourage violence against the US & our allies.”
This story was updated at 1:40 p.m.
