US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, 10 September, announced that he has fired national security adviser John Bolton, citing strong disagreements on a number of policy issues.
Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he told Bolton his services were no longer needed at the White House on Monday night, and said Bolton submitted his resignation on Tuesday morning.
Trump said that he "disagreed strongly" with many of Bolton's suggestions, "as did others in the administration".
Bolton responded in a tweet of his own that he offered to resign on Monday "and President Trump said, 'Let's talk about it tomorrow'."
Bolton's ouster came as a surprise to many in the White House. Just an hour before Trump's tweet, the press office announced that Bolton would join Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a briefing.
Bolton was always an unlikely pick to be Trump’s third national security adviser, with a world view seemingly ill-fit to the president’s isolationist “America First” pronouncements.
Inside the administration, Bolton advocated caution on the president's whirlwind rapprochement with North Korea and against Trump's decision last year to pull US troops out of Syria.
He masterminded a quiet campaign inside the administration and with allies abroad to convince Trump to keep US forces in Syria to counter the remnants of the Islamic State and Iranian influence in the region.
Bolton was named Trump's third national security adviser in April 2018 after the departure of Army Gen. HR McMaster.
(Published in an arrangement with the Associated Press)
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