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There were a lot of well documented problems regarding John Bolton but at the end “the leaking is what got him,” according to a source who has talked to President Trump about the former national security adviser.
Specifically, in the President’s view, telling reporters things about the Camp David summit that made Trump look bad, the source said.
“He has been a bureaucratic infighter his whole life — and it finally hurt him,” the source added.
While there has been much reporting on tensions between John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, multiple sources said Bolton and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also clashed repeatedly on a range of issues.
Many of those issues were related to Treasury Department actions on sanctions. Mnuchin often felt that Bolton was too heavy-handed in advocating for sanctions, in particular over the administration’s policy toward Venezuela, the sources said.
It’s perhaps also why Mnuchin gratuitously pointed out during Tuesday’s briefing that Bolton and Trump had “very different” views of the Iraq War.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a White House press briefing that he did not think President Trump’s national security team is a mess.
Asked by CNN whether he thought the team was a mess, Mnuchin said, “Absolutely not. That’s the most ridiculous question I’ve ever heard of.”
“Let me just say the national security team, which is what you asked, consists of the national security adviser, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, myself, the chief of staff and many others,” he continued.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that world leaders should not expect any foreign policy change in former national security adviser John Bolton’s absence.
“These have been the President’s policies,” Pompeo said, noting that his advisers “give him our best wisdom,” as well as advice and data to make decisions.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also chimed in to answer the original question about where Bolton disagreed with Trump.
Trump’s view of the Iraq War and Bolton’s, Mnuchin said, “was very different.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said today that President Trump asked John Bolton for his resignation last night and “it was received this morning.”
He acknowledged that he disagreed with Bolton “many times.”
“That’s for sure,” he said, but added he disagrees with others, as well.
Asked whether he and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were surprised that Bolton was fired, given that he was supposed to appear at this briefing alongside them, Pompeo said, “I’m never surprised.”
He continued: “We work very closely with the President,” and they “have a good understanding of how he’s thinking about things.”
John Bolton had recently expressed reluctance to defend the Trump administration on television.
Bolton had been soft-booked to do “Meet the Press” and “This Week” on Aug. 25 during the G-7 summit, according to people familiar with the matter, but he later backed out.
According to one official familiar with the situation, Bolton felt uncomfortable explaining and defending Trump’s positions on various issues, including Russia, which had become a central topic of the summit.
Other officials said Kudlow and Mnuchin were simply better positioned to speak about economic issues, which were also in focus at the G7.
NBC and ABC declined to comment.
Charles Kupperman was named as the next acting National Security Council director following John Bolton’s firing, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters.
Kupperman had been serving as the deputy national security adviser. He is a longtime Bolton ally and adviser.
He claimed there was “no one issue” that led to Bolton’s firing, and referred reporters to the forthcoming briefing for more information.
Gidley added that the situation with Bolton was “no longer tenable so the President made a change.”
Asked if there are any updates to the schedule for the 1:30 p.m. ET briefing, a White House official said John “Bolton is no longer in the building.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin are still planning to hold a news conference soon from the White House.
About Bolton’s firing: An hour before the briefing, Trump announced in a tweet that he had fired Bolton. The now-former national security adviser was scheduled to appear at the news conference as well.
Separately, a source close to Bolton told reporters,“Since Ambassador Bolton has been NSC adviser — for the last 17 months — there have no been no bad deals: Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, China.”
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are reacting to John Bolton’s sudden exit as President Trump’s national security adviser.
Here’s what they have to say:
Republicans
Democrats
John Bolton’s ouster this morning was so sudden that he even led a meeting of top administration officials, known as a principals committee meeting, this morning, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The source said the meeting — on the topic of refugees — went on as planned and there was no indication that Bolton’s firing was imminent. The meeting ended only an hour before the President’s tweet.
Most officials learned about Bolton’s departure later in the morning from the President’s Twitter feed.
Officials have been irritated at John Bolton for a while, not just because of his policy differences but because of the way he conducted himself, according to a source in President Trump’s world.
There has been general irritation over his tactics, style and bravado for months, the source said. For example, the source said Bolton has been traveling with a lot of staff, sometimes taking a different plane from the President, “almost acting like the Secretary of State.”
But he wasn’t just butting heads with Mike Pompeo, he also was strongly disliked by White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
John Bolton and President Trump got into a heated argument last night, according to two people familiar with what happened, over the President’s plan to host Taliban leaders at Camp David.
It’s unclear if it was on the phone or in person.
Officials at the National Security Council are wondering about the future of their organization after the abrupt firing of John Bolton.
When Bolton arrived in March 2018, he brought with him several officials to fill key roles —and the fate of those officials isn’t clear.
As staffers detailed to the NSC phased out, Bolton worked to replace them with people he’d worked with previously and he considered loyal to him. His goal was to have senior leaders in place that were “his people” as the 2020 election season began.
If those officials depart en masse, the NSC will be majorly depleted, so it’s not expected they will all follow Bolton out the door.
But there is uncertainty today about what happens next.
The campaign by Trump allies to push John Bolton out of the administration had ramped up in recent weeks, multiple sources tell CNN.
The President had received multiple phone calls and appeals to replace Bolton with someone who agreed with him more and was willing to follow through with his decisions when he didn’t.
This was something Trump heard since he hired Bolton — but people noticed the President’s frustration with him was growing in recent weeks so they upped the pressure.
A senior administration official told CNN that the White House and national security officials learned about John Bolton’s firing from President Trump’s tweet.
The official described aides as frantically trying to figure things out at the moment.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney called John Bolton’s departure a “huge loss” for the Trump administration and said he was “very unhappy” to learn he was leaving.
Romney said that Bolton was an important voice in the room because he would take a different view.
Asked who should replace Bolton, Romney said, “John Bolton.”
President Trump was irked by reports that he had faced internal pushback from his national security adviser John Bolton over his decision to host leaders of the Taliban at Camp David, multiple people familiar with his frustration said.
Some background: Trump eventually scrapped the event after a Taliban car bomb killed a US soldier and 11 others last week. But that decision came after heated debate within the administration over the venue for the summit — an outgrowth of larger, more substantial disagreements over the wisdom of negotiating with the Taliban at all.
Trump disputed reporting that he overruled Pence and “various advisers” on the Camp David meeting.
“I always think it is good to meet and talk, but in this case I decided not to,” the President tweeted Monday.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin declined to comment if he was “surprised” by President Trump’s decision to ask national security adviser John Bolton to resign.
“I’m not going to comment,” said Mnuchin in a gaggle with reporters.
Earlier today, the White House said Bolton, Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would hold a 1:30 p.m. ET news conference. That briefing is still going to happen, Mnuchin said.
John Bolton just tweeted that he offered to resign last night as President Trump’s national security adviser.
Bolton went on to describe a meeting he had with Trump, tweeting that he had told him, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
The tweets came minutes after Trump announced on Twitter that he informed Bolton on Monday that “his services were no longer needed.”
Here’s the tweet:
![CORRECTION / This picture shows a general view of damaged structures at the site of a strike in Bartalla in the northern Iraqi Nineveh province on July 29, 2026. US-Saudi strikes on Iraq on July 29 killed at least 20 members of a former paramilitary alliance that includes pro-Iran groups, the alliance said. The United States and Saudi Arabia said they had struck Iran-backed militants in Iraq in response to attacks on US forces and Saudi oil facilities. (Photo by Zaid AL-OBEIDI / AFP via Getty Images) / Attention editors: AFP covers the war in the Middle East through its extensive regional network, including bureaus in Tehran, Jerusalem and several neighboring countries.Since the start of the conflict, journalists have been working under increasingly restrictive conditions. Authorities in several countries have limited reporters' movements, photo and live video coverage from sensitive locations. Some governments and armed groups have banned images of missile or drone strikes and other security-related sites. / "The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by Ziad OBEID has been modified in AFP systems in the following manner: corrects byline to [Zaid AL-OBEIDI] instead of [Ziad OBEID]. Please immediately remove the erroneous mention[s] from all your online services and delete it (them) from your servers. If you have been authorized by AFP to distribute it (them) to third parties, please ensure that the same actions are carried out by them. Failure to promptly comply with these instructions will entail liability on your part for any continued or post notification usage. Therefore we thank you very much for all your attention and prompt action. We are sorry for the inconvenience this notification may cause and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require."](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/gettyimages-2287466969.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_270,w_480,c_fill)
