Report: 'Fed Up with Bolton,' Trump Strongly Considering Replacement Options
Another White House shakeup might be in the works, with a report this week that President Donald Trump is reviewing potential replacements for National Security Adviser John Bolton.
Bolton’s hawkish approach to dealing with foreign conflicts has led to increased tensions inside the Trump administration, the Washington Examiner reported Tuesday.
And those tension exchanges are not lost on Trump, who reportedly has quarreled directly with Bolton over a handful of policy concerns and solutions in recent months.
Two former White House officials told the Examiner that these disputes have left Trump “fed up with Bolton,” and they allege he “has seriously been considering other options.”
“It’s certainly become clear to anyone who knows the way this president operates that Bolton’s time is coming to an end. It’s just unclear if he has a few more weeks or a few more months,” another former White House official told the outlet.
The sources indicated that Trump has clashed with Bolton and his allies in recent months on a variety of escalating foreign conflicts in South America, Asia and the Middle East.
Bolton reportedly pulled for U.S. military intervention in Venezuela this past February as civil unrest erupted in the nation.
Threatening Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the national security adviser declared at the time that the United States was seeking “a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open.”
Tensions between Bolton and Trump took a more public tenor in May when the president downplayed Bolton’s concerns over a North Korean missile test, opting to rely on diplomatic relations over a military response.
Most recently, tensions flared as Trump rejected Bolton’s longstanding hope for “regime change” in Iran.
Instead, the president recently allowed for Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky to act as a diplomatic emissary between the two nations in response to Iran’s aggressive rhetoric and actions.
These disagreements, according to a report from The Washington Post, have strained the relationship between Bolton and White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to a point where they are “barely on speaking terms.”
“Mulvaney as of last week was interested in removing John Bolton from his job. That’s true. That is not speculation,” an anonymous source close to Mulvaney told the Examiner.
Mulvaney, on the other hand, told the outlet he has “never spoken to anybody about John Bolton’s job.”
A number of other sources back Mulvaney’s statement, saying Bolton might be on the outs but likely is “not going anywhere” until after the next election cycle.
According to the Examiner’s original White House sources, were Bolton to be replaced, the options include retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, who holds similar noninterventionist stances on conflicts from Afghanistan to Syria, and Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Ricky Waddell, who recently met at length with the president.
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