The president of the United States has just fired his National Security adviser john bolton on twitter. This is by my count the third time a top National Security official has been fired on twitter on social media. The first time of course was Rex Tillerson. The second time was dan coats, the National Intelligence director. The tweet i am now seeing says i have asked john for his resignation. I thanked i dont know for his service. I will be selecting a new National Security adviser next week. I disagreed strongly with his decisions and ever there continued to say i asked john for his resignation today. Msnbc political analyst, were going to speak shortly with peter baker who is on the Phone Reporting at the New York Times as we speak. Jim joins me now, manager of President Obamas campaign. This is pretty extraordinary. Were in a middle of a controversy over the camp david proposed meeting. John bolton objected to it very strongly, and we understand according to our reporting that privately the Vice President had also suggested that the initial plan which was for a white house meeting was not welladvised. We dont know how strongly the Vice President objected privately to the president about the Camp David Ameeting as well, but that the Secretary Of State, mike pompeo, was in favor of these taliban talks here In Washington. And it was of course being negotiated by Zal Khalilzad who worked for the Secretary Of State. The dmz meeting, was not there at the zmz meeting and objected to this very high profile proposed Camp David Meeting the
week leading into 9 11 with the taliban for a peace deal that had not been negotiated with the Afghan Government and was not agreed to by the Afghan Government. Your reaction to all this as we are now covering this in Breaking News Mode . Its crazy, andrea. For the first time in my life i feel sorry for john bolton. He was right. The politics and the pop ticks of having the taliban which weve been at war with for 18 years that has been harboring our deepest and truest enemies at camp david where as you know a Hallowed Ground where roosevelt and church hill figured out world war ii, bringing the taliban there was perhaps the worst idea ive heard in politics in a very long time. John bolton said the right thing, disagreed, and in the ongoing soap opera that is the Trump White House, he seems to have been thrown out for
disagreeing with the Secretary Of State and the president of the United States about a really silly thing. And going forward, now were going to get our third or fourth National Security adviser. Hes had several chiefs of staff. Its an ongoing parlor game of who would be stupid enough to take these jobs because you dont last very long and you get fired on twitter. As you know, i was President Obama deputy chief of staff for operations, and typically how this would go in a normal sane white house is someone like me would show up and say look, the president no longer has confidence in you. How do we do this the right way. Instead he gets fired on twitter. The whole world is left to figure out who is Still Standing in this whole thing. For the first time we have major differences between the Vice President of the United States and the president who is now openly disagreeing with the president on some of these things, and were in a campaign
atmosphere. Theres a Washington Post poll out this morning showing the president s numbers dropping precipitously. And in the middle of all this i think youre seeing panic in the president and the white house and theyre starting to do crazy things like firing their National Security adviser for giving them very good advice. We expected to hear from john bolton at 1 30 eastern in the Briefing Room with the Secretary Of State, mike pompeo, and Steve Mnuchin to talk about another counterterrorism operation. Clearly now the Secretary Of State and the National Security adviser cannot appear together when theres so much disagreement, public disagreement between them on these key issues on korea, On Afghanistan. Bolton who was the hawkish person in this cabinet and was not supporting a lot of these initiatives, controversial initiatives by the president. Han
hans nichols is at the white house right now. This is the most dramatic shake up hans, youre on the air if you can are you still on the phone . Reporter no, i got you andrea. Im sorry. Im trying to get to the bottom of this and informing some sources that bolton is out and people trying to process this in real time. Heres the important thing about boltons dismissal. Its the tone of President Trumps dismissal. Its clearly this is not amicable. We know there have been huge divisions within the administration most recently surfacing over what to do about afghanistan more than just hosting the taliban at camp david. This got to the core of what President Donald Trump cam pawned on, and that is getting out of foreign wars. We know bolton was more for staying longer, pompeo was on the other side of this. This is a clear win for mike pompeo as he continues to consolidate power. Bolton is the fourth National Security adviser this president has had. Let me correct myself as i count
them up. He is the fourth. Its an indication of more recycling at the top, and andrea this has longterm implications for a whole host of issues thats iran, thats north korea, thats the middle east peace process, thats venezuela. John bolton was integral in all those conversations. The president has often said he liked boltons hawkish nature and he liked to have the spectrum there to be more bellicose himself. Bolton is out. We need to figure out just what the proximate cause is and who will replace him and what it means for the direction of the administration and for a whole host of issues across the globe. Of course bolton almost auditioned for the job as a Fox News Commentator very vigorously against iran as is pompeo. So, on that, they did not disagree. But he has been driving a lot of the action on iran, certainly was not comfortable with the
president suggesting he would be willing to talk to iranian leaders. Youve got the Un General Assembly meetings coming up in two weeks. Were there in new york for the un meetings. The president is giving a major speech on the 24th at the United Nations. And now his National Security adviser has been fired. One other thing about john bolton i want to point out and im going to bring in ned price here on the phone, former Special Assistant to President Obama. The big difference between john bolton and all his predecessors going back in any administration ive covered is he did not oversee the deputies meetings. He did not convene other agencies. He operated unilaterally very frequently. So, he was not factoring in the opinions of the pentagon, of the cia, of the State Department in decisions that he brought to the president. And that was one subject of a lot of criticism. Even with had i was interviewing dan coats somewhat famously now
in retrospect last summer in aspen when that tweet went out from the white house that putin five days after the very controversial meeting. The Intelligence Community, the Secretary Of State had not been consulted. That was all the president , apparently in communication with putin to bolton directly to Sarah Sanders to tweet out the invitation and without consulting anyone else in the team whether or not this was a good or bad idea. Hans. Reporter in some ways bolton ran his own State Department. Youll recall the time he announced the Carrier StrikeGroup Heading to the middle east. That didnt come from the pentagon, the State Department, the president. It came from the neural adviser. What you saw from bolton was trying to put pressure on the president , sometimes boxing him in to more bellicose positions,
more hawkish positions. This has been a fundamental question throughout the Trump Administration and that is to what extent is he going to be a traditional republican and what extent is he going to be an isolationist. Trumps impulses on this are clear. He wanted to draw down from afghanistan. He wanted to get out of certain wars. You saw that with syria as well. The president wanted to bring down troops there. Even though President Trump criticized President Obama for what trump said at the time was withdrawing from iraq too soon. The question of the hour is how fundamental is this split within the administration now or is it clear that the isolationists have won, and are there any counterweights to this bolton trump. Mike pence was on the other side of the afghanistan decision. Mike pence cannot be dismissed. He is a constitutionally ensconced figure. If he has disagreements, those cannot be dismissed by simply firing the Vice President. This gives the sense that the splits are real, theres serious debate about the course of certain foreign policies, and we need to figure out what that means. The president may be meeting with the iranians. You mentioned the United Nations meeting next week. The north koreans just last night suggested theyre willing to have a third or Fourth Meeting depending on how you count the one they had in the dmz. Thats after they sent projectiles into the ocean there. And then a question on what the next stages will be in the middle east, especially with netanyahu and israel right now talking about an exing more of the jordan valley. Tum multiwous time, different time, and we potentially have a new adviser coming no n to talk to the president. On the phone now, jeremy bash. Jeremy, john bolton came in
april 9, 2018. He was the third National Security adviser and of course doesnt need senate confirmation. So, another National Security adviser can be put quickly in place. But this is a real Turning Point for the administration going into an Election Year as to what he wants his policies to be and whether these high Profile Photo opportunities like the dmz meeting with kim jongun and what they were planning at camp david, whether this can replace real policy and what the pay out is. Thats right, andrea. The traditional role of a National Security adviser is to create a process by which all the stakeholders, chairman of the joint chiefs, Secretary Of State, they can all have a voice in the Policy Deliberations and Tee Up Decisions for the president. And traditionally, National Security advisers have kind of held their own opinions back. But what has happened here are two things. Number one is the process has
completely broken down. There is no National Security process to speak of. Its basically whatever the president wants on any given day and people try to carry out his wishes. And second is there have been real fundamental splits because without a process to preside over, john bolton was basically relegated to being in essence a Fox News Commentator, a hawker commentator inside the white house. And in that role, that pit him directly against the president s instincts. The president wanted to have photo ops, headlines regarding north korea, regarding the taliban. John bolton said we cant cozy up to a dictator in north korea. We cant give him a world platform without getting anything concrete in return. Likewise with respect to the afghanistan decision, i think john boltons deep concern which ive heard echoed across the National Security establishment is why are we having a negotiation in which the first thing being discussed is the withdrawal of American Military and intelligence officials. Shouldnt we first put theAfghan Government at the table. We have it backwards. I think john bolton had strong disagreements and the president said get out of my way. Joining us here as well In Washington, evo. On the phone we have ned price. First to you, going into these meetings. The World Leaders are gathering in new york. They want to see what the president has to say. We have yet another shake up in the National Security team. Bolton is tweeting now, i offered to resign last night and the president said we would discuss it today. The president then got out ahead of john bolton by firing him on twitter. The president is his own adviser. He doesnt take advice from anybody and john bolton has found out he doesnt take advice from his National Security adviser. This is as youve said the third National Security adviser in
less than three years that the president has had. I wouldnt be surprised if the next one wont last long as the previous ones havent. And the reality is this, the president thinks he knows what he wants to do in International Affairs and Domestic Affairs and everything. He doesnt want a process. The one that jeremy just talked about of gathering the advisers together to help figure out what the policy should be and if there is such a process if there is a time as there was with afghanistan in the last couple of weeks. He will just make up his own mind and do his own thing. And i think World Leaders have now taken the measure of the man. Its why, for example, at the g7 they decided not to have a communique because they never knew whether the president would sign on and if he did sign on how long he would sign on for it. So, this is the world were living in, a president who decides on a whim almost what he wants, when he wants it, whether or not to have a meeting with the taliban in camp david or to have a meeting with the taliban
at camp david. Its all him doing his own thing and his own show, and john bolton is now the latest victim of it. But hes certainly not the first and he probably wont be the last. This comes at such a critical point though. Ned price, you worked in the c iksa. You worked in the National Security docouncil. Were not even talking about the peace plan where the adviser Jason Greenblatt quit on friday. And there is no middle east peace plan. Were going into an election in israel next week, september 17th, for netanyahu. Weve got iran on teetering as they are now violating the joint agreement on Nuclear Accords because they say the u. S. Has sanctioned them and they havent seen anything for their compliance for the 14 previous months. So, youve got a tinderbox in
iran, nothing to show in korea with major advances by the north koreans along the way as the president dismisses the importance of the short range missiles which do threaten our u. S. Bases, the japanese, and the south koreans. Where do we stand . Well, andrea, i think its beyond any single tactical or even regional issue. This was a question of differing world views, not only between john bolton and President Trump, his now former boss, but also between john bolton and much of the administration and even the republican establishment, not to mention the american people. Yes, its iran. Yes, its the middle east peace plan, the