contained. it's not as dense. the population is california, obviously, so they can let those areas burn, but it is freaking people out. >> as it should be. the video you brought is amazing. thanks so much, bill. we'll continue covering it because you are spearheading it. thank you so much for joining me. "inside politics" with john king starts right now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. dramatic breaking news just as we begin the hour. the president of the united states announcing on twitter his national security adviser john bolton is leaving. you see the tweet from the president right there. i asked john for his resignation which was give tn to me this morning. i thank john for his service. ilbe naming a new security adviser this week. there have long been tensions between the president and his security adviser, long been tensions between the president and the rest of his security team, including secretary of

state mike pompeo. but the timing is striking as the administration continues to try to work out its policy when it comes to iran. just moments ago the israeli prime minister announcing his plans to greatly expand israeli control, annex part of the west bank. we try to get more on this breaking news story. here with me in studio to share their reporting, cnn, malika henderson, heather with politico and vivian solano with the "wall street journal." let me start with you, vivian. they said the president likes creative tension. he likes this. clearly his patience with john bolton, who has been among the more hawkish advisers, has differed with the president on issues like russia. why now? >> well, in the last couple of days we've seen a lot of tension between president trump's top advisers specifically with this meeting that was supposed to take place a couple of days ago but was called off with regard to finding a peace plan for afghanistan. john bolt upon, according to my reporting as well as yours, your

teams, that john bolton was very much against the president meeting with the taliban as well as a number of his advisers. he felt this was not the approach and a lot of tension fwe between his top advisers as to what the approach to the afghanistan strategy might be. but this is not now. president trump has frequently cited the fact that john bolton has what he calls strong views. he is a hawk, and the president does like the differing opinions, but a number of policies that just didn't come through in terms of his venezuela strategy. john bolton was really, really aggressive trying to find a solution, get venezuela's president maduro out. president trump growing impatient with that strategy. also iran. president trump wanted to take a more moderate approach to iran. john bolton always a hawk on iran wanted to take military action a couple months ago when they shot down a drone over the gulf. so a number of different foreign policy issues where john bolton was obviously seeing differently than the president. this is very dramatic because we

knew there was tension in the white house but didn't necessarily know this was imminent. so here we go. >> and kaitlan collins is at the white house. kaitlan, an odd fit from day one. why now? >> john bolton is supposed to participate in a briefing at the white house in about an hour and a half. this was going to be on this executive order they were signing on counterterrorism. he was going to appear alongside the secretary of state, mike pompeo, and secretary steve mnuchin, but now the president has announced he's fired john bolton. what's striking about the president's tweet is typically the president will announce when somebody is leaving the white house, saying they are leaving by choice. like when jim mattis resigned with protest, he said it was mutual, basically. now, this won't come as a huge surprise because there was a lot of infighting in the white house, and just last week, cnn reported on just how badly that infighting in the administration

had become where secretary of state mike pompeo and john bolton had gone several weeks recently without even speaking to each other. that had changed a little bit to where they were not speaking outside of formal meetings. a big change in that relationship that you used to see, but also a lot of this had to do with john bolton as an isolated national security adviser who was not only at odds with the president often at times but also the secretary of state, who is highly favored by the president, and even the chief of staff, mick mulvaney. we also reported on this breakdown in the nsc staff in the west wing staff. so this is substantial, though people did see this coming for some time because the divisions just seem to be too strong in the west wing for john bolton to make it much longer. but we should note that john bolton and his people weren't exactly sure when his time would come, whether or not he would be fired or whether or not he would be able to hang around in this administration. we reported that john bolton had his eyes on mike pompeo's job as secretary of state.

his aides did not push back on that, john. >> kaitlan collins, come back to us with reporting throughout the hour. let's go to kylie at the state house. kaitlan just mentioned the secretary of state and the national security adviser were supposed to be side by side today. and b, also mentioned as part of that, the long-running tensions between the two of them. >> reporter: that's right, so even though these two leaders in trump's national security team are idealogically aligned, secretary of state mike pompeo and national security adviser who is now leaving the administration, john bolton, there has been simmering tensions as kaitlan referenced between the two for months now. we have reported on that extensively. we know that there has been instances in which national security adviser john bolton has actually asked for intelligence on north korea, which is an issue that secretary pompeo had owned and not shared that intelligence with pompeo, using it as leverage in conversations when he is speaking with president trump to try and push

forward his agenda. now, we know national security adviser bolton is an iran hawk. he wanted to be the one, he was pushing president trump to take a strike on iran earlier this year. president trump decided not to do that. there has also been a breakdown between the president and his national security adviser when it comes to other issues. venezuela is one of them with bolton pushing for a harder stance on venezuela, and some of what he was trying to push forward not coming yet to fruition. clearly with him leaving, it's going to be a question mark in terms of who comes into that role, because this is something that we weren't expecting today. we knew that there were tensions, we knew that president trump had grown increasingly frustrated with bolton, specifically during a recent trip to the uk, it was national security adviser john bolton that made the first trip to visit with the new leadership under johnson, prime minister boris johnson, and it was not the other u.s. officials who

were there meeting with him. so bolton was trying to get out ahead, but clearly president trump has grown frustrated in the instances where he has gone out ahead of the president and is asking him to leave. we're waiting for some responses from the state department in terms of how they are going to respond to this and what it means for secretary of state mike pompeo as he assumes even more control over the national security agenda of this administration. >> kylie atwood, come back to us again if there is more reporting. you mention the mike pompeo assuming more control. there's also a question whether secretary pompeo may leave in a couple months to run for a senate seat in the state of kansas. the president of the united states announcing on twitter just moments ago his national security adviser john bolton is out. here is how the president did it, in this tweet. 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 him for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. i thank john very much for his service. i will be naming a new national security adviser next week. i believe we ever on the phone aaron miller, our senior diplomatic analyst in both democratic and republican administrations. aaron, more turnover. what does it mean? >> two secretaries of state, including the shortest tenured secretary of state in the modern history of the republic, rex tillers tillerson, and three national security advisers in three years during a period of incredible consequence in foreign policy, disruption, dysfunction and misdirection in the nation's foreign policy. i would suspect, given the harshness of this tweet, compared to the many more gentle letdowns that the president sets

the tone in dismissing his senior officials, that bolton must not have simply disagreed with the president, he must have pushed some red line and pushed it hard. that's number one. number two, the president's political advisers, who knows who is whispering in his ear on this one, may have simply said there is too much broken crockery. pam pay o pompeo, if he decides to stay, is a much better trump whisperer than michael bolton. having watched this for 25 years, played a part in this movie, john, it's an extraordinary set of scenes we're witnessing. >> you mentioned the tone and you're absolutely right. the president finds both for the person leaving and himself that this is not chaos a more gentle way of saying goodbye to somebody. this is a slam the door on your way out. i remember bolton from the george bush administration.

he is known, a, to be polarizing, b, to be brittle at times with his relationships, but c, he is also known as a survivor to work the system behind the scenes, if you will, to be a bureaucratic survivor and to work the bureaucracy to do things that maybe others at the table didn't want to happen. is that what you're pointing out here? >> it's true, but bolton is a master at diplomacy. it occurred not in a galaxy far, far away with respect to basic rules of diplomacy. they occurred in a system which was relatively predictable. this is not predictable. you have a mercurial, idiosyncratic president who acts on his ego and personal sensibilities. this was not an environment which played to bolton's strength, clearly. and i really do believe that

pompeo had a much better read on how to handle the president. bolton pushed, john, and i suspect on this one he pushed one bridge too far. >> to that point, pompeo has been able to disagree with the president without being disagreeable. john bolton definitely sees the president more often. maybe that prickly nature became too much. back to kaitlan collins at the white house. kaitlan, what do you know? >> the president just made brief statements on the firing of john bolton as well as john sanchez. the tweet said everything. it said he, meaning the president, did not like a lot of his policies and they disagreed. of course, john, everyone will tell you that is the understatement of the year on just how much the president and john bolton disagreed on things. the question is going to be, why now? because they've gone back and forth on sefrld skpurt policy issues over the years.

you have to look at that discussion and then kans keld the leaders at camp david. the national security adviser had been beamed into this meeting that the president had with his national security team the friday before labor day, because bolton was still in europe. he wasn't present at that meeting, and that's the meeting that first came to the idea to host the advisers at camp david. of course he was one of the leading figures pushing back not -- and he has them believing, essentially, that the taliban has gotten too much leverage, but he was highly against the president meeting with cons.

that is surely to be one of the major points in this firing you're seeing today. >> kaitlan collins, come back to us with more reporting. john bolton, who likes to be any part of a debate about john bolton, said this on twitter. i offered to resign last night and president trump said, let's talk about it tomorrow. a different tone there as we come back into the room. >> another one says, i offered it to resign last night. >> i offered to resign last night, and the president said, let's referral. if you're familiar with the fox newschannel, john bolton, after he left the bush admin p. >> and i wouldn't be surprised to more frr john bolton sfchlt. this was an awkward mix, i think, bolton and trump.

if you recall the first time, they aimed a specific statement at bolton. they shame as the most antagonistic voice within the administration. bolton is a very interesting figure, as you mentioned, the depth in working the democracy, and part of the people fear him because he has a clearly defined i h idealogic idealogical ideals, and i imagine there was something more than, i would like your resignati resignation. there was some debate that triggered this. we know they were arguing over the iran policy in the last week. >> you mentioned another example. is this just the straw that broke john bolton's bath, or was there some specific trigger in the sense that, north korea. he didn't want the president talking to north korea. see, i told you so. they're never going to come around.

the president said i want to sit down with president raheem goran. was this cumulative or was there something more specific? the president always said, until he tires of it, i like the chaos. you in the media says it's chaos. i like when everyone in the room is screaming at me, they all have different opinions. i decide. >> but john bolton was very public about the disagreement, right, even when you think about north korea when the president announced on twitter that he wanted to go to the dmz and meet with kim jong-un. john bolton didn't show up, right, and it was made very clear that he was going to stick to his beliefs. he's a republican's republican in terms of fofren policily. it seems like he sort of got the

sdwrob because he wasly -- i think reld inforce the republicans' party on foreign policy which is very add with the way the president is conducting r. president trump was willing to pursue, including talking to kim jong-un, including talking to him. for him to be in that atmosphere, for him to take part in those talks, it really violated the name and reputation he has built up over these years. it was really a conflict from day one for him whether or not he stays or goes. the other issue is president trump is someone who thrives on personal connections with people. he has that with secretary pompeo. they have a really good relationship. he likes them. john bolton was not someone that he had that natural dynamic with and that was a problem with his

predecessor, h.r. mcmaster, too, where they just didn't mesh, they didn't have chemistry with each other. for president trump that's really important. >> now you're looking for your fourth national security adviser. john bolton was number three. to that point, john bolton, if you're a liz chain congress, and if you want what the president is saying about the tam ban, about russia. he is a former mb ember of congress, he's more with the hawkish mainstream where the president has never been. has never been on any foreign policy. you bring in trade, the nato alliance, you bring says he's essentially tried to pull it. >> i think pompeii oy, but i think republicans on the hill, as you mentioned, knows how to

tuerk. he will disagree with the president but in a gent ler way, and i think trump is often more likely to listen to differing opinions the way you read nem. i think a lot of them on the hill are feeling a bit retlooefd pompeii so he stlil many. >> again, this is interesting. john bolton is a hawk. john bolton has. rand paul, more of the isolationist, stay away from the world, tweeting this out. i many the president has great instincts on foreign policy and end recalling. in that context the endless wars get back to the original question about the timing here.

the most was his plan, and then he decided to bring the taliban to camp david on october 11 and bring the afghan government along who doesn't trust this. they have absolutely no relationship with the taliban. the president pulled the plagugn his own. now he's looking for a new national security adviser. >> you're right, in some warksz it's public policy even by photo op. they're probably further along in terms of their nuclear weapons capabilities, and here the same thing, bringing the taliban to camp david. imagine this sort of photo op of that. obviously mike pence and lots of

other republicans in particular, liz cheney, are very much against that saying, this is not something you do, period, but certainly not something you do in the days before the anniversary of 9/11. >> at this point it's going to be interesting to see who comes in in his place, because president trump at this point, again, like you say, we're on his fourth national security adviser, chemistry being very important to him. a lot of people like senator tom cotton, who has eyed a number of positions within the administration, rand paul who kind of volunteered to go an envoy to iran. so it's going to be very interesting in the coming weeks to see who will be to take job. president trump obviously has very strong but also unkbengs tension and see take the hits as

they come. z zpz. >> that was a better description of the job, someone. there was supposed to be a meeting between mike pompeo, secretary of state, and john bolton. we're waiting to hear from secretary pompeo. secretary mnuchin is up on capitol hill. he had two strong words when he heard this: no comment. secretary mnuchin somebody who has gone in and out with the president's good graces. john bolton said, he disagreed with me too often. i decided he had to be let go. >> he had strong views but that's okay. i actually temp erv john, which

is now going to be someone else. i like john, i get very good advice from john. >> who are the other people? we know secretary pompeo. i don't know that i've described him as doveish. his record in congress was certainly more hawkish. he was the cia director before that. sometimes you change jobs, you get access to more information, you can change. but who? who? we have a relatively new secretary of defense, secretary esper. no criticism to secretary esper, but no experience like john bolton had. is the president looking for balance? >> that's why i think this choice is going to be so interesting, because the president did come in on a number of issues with these views that were different than traditional republican views, but his cabinet and his administration have largely been stocked by the republican

establishme establishment. so we've seen whether it's on trade or foreign policy or even immigration. he sometimes had to push against the members of his own administration to transferable. it's interesting to hear about president trump's instincts and i think that's a symbol of the lack of focus he's brought to this administration. we do think he has these instructs because of the stuff he says here and there, but he doesn't have the focus to share with others who agree with his views. instead we get this uncertainty, we get this all over the skpap. so you have people like bolton, people many who push it in the direction that i think is right. i can keep bad things from happening if.

over and over they fail to do that if they think they can do that, and it leaves the with the with another vacancy. >> i'm coming back with more on this paid. some new reporting when we come back just why the president ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands?

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. some new cnn reporting on this hour's dramatic breaking news story. the president has announced on twitter that his national security adviser john bolton is leaving. he said he asked for his resignation, and then he said, no, he asked to leave last night. president trump getting more and more irritated with bolton over the past several months for his statements on iran, venezuela and now afghanistan. the president said he no longer believed he could advocate for the president's agenda. he also felt bolton wasn't a forceful enough advocate for him in the media. and when he did make appearances, he wasn't convincing enough when it was evident. he didn't believe in some of the foreign policy goals.

let's get some insight from this man. friends and foe around the world says he calls the shots. what is this going to do? >> this will change everything john bolton told you. he was here a month ago, and he was telling the united kingdom that it should stick with the united states and its policy on iran and join the security force with the persian gulf. at that time the opinion was to stick with the europeans. he was telling them they shouldn't buy huawei equipment. he was keen on britain leaving the european union. he said it would be very easy for the united states to strike a strong trade relationship with britain. but he really stepped in it on that issue, and that was something that president trump and the g-7, when he met there

with boris johnson, had to clean up. but it was very clear to, i think, british journalists in particular who followed this issue closely, john bolton had indicated that the united states would like to get access to the national british health service. hugely politically damaging to john bolton, and when the camera was on the pair of them, they both coordinated on that point saying the national health service and the united kingdom is not open for business in the united states in a trade situation. so i think that tells you the problems that surface that president trump had to deal with on the international stage with john bolton, but i think right now a lot of us will be looking to iran and what is iran's reaction going to be on this. because again, going back to the g-7, the arrival there of the iranian foreign minister sharif,

the president didn't seem to blanch too much about that, indeed really made it clear that he was willing to meet with the iranian president rouhani at some point in the future. bolton, as we all know, has been such a hawk for such a long time on iran. very easy to see the differences there. if you're a united states ally and you've md, you're trying to figure out how much of that p. d a lot of cables to the ambassadors trying to figure out what this means for international relations. john bolton not shy about making his case between the bush administration and his now job in the trump administration. former job in the trump administration. let's get back to kaitlan collins in the white house who has more on how bolton is

spinning this. >> he is sduti idisputing what president says. the president doesn't usually characterize this as falling on someone, but not only just tweeting about it himself but going so far as to text members of the media his position on this, john, telling fox news, let's be clear, i resigned. i'm not sure we've ever seen someone who has left the president about how they are departing the administration so quickly as we were watching john bolton do so in realtime on twitter right now. >> it kind of comes as a surprise that john bolton wouldn't leave this way. we knew there was the internal division. it seemed to be business as usual around here until the president's tweet, announcing he

was firing from john bolt phenomenon just come out. what's going to happen to the people that john bolton brought into the national security council? because when he came in after mcmaster left, he really changed the structure it haof it, in sm things and also big things. that person no longer reported to the president. they now reported directly to john bolton, the national security adviser. but he also filled some of those roles with people who had work with him for decades, loyalists to john bolton which is what contributed to the tension between nfc staff and west wing staff. so the question going forward and whether or not those people stay in their position when the president says he's naming a new national security adviser next week, but right now we're just trying to get to the bottom of whether or not is the president firing him or is john bolton resigning? >> john bolton says he resigns. the president says otherwise. a quick break. when we come back, though, more on this quick breaking news.

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more now in the hour's national security news. john bolton is leaving the white house. there is a fight between the president and his close aides and mr. bolton about how it happened. bolton says he resigned.

the president says he asked for bolton's resignation. kaitlan collins looiive at us an at the white house with some fascinating reporting of what we'll call the last straw. >> what came first, the chicken or the egg, did he get fired or did he resign, but the president and john bolton got into what was described as a bitter disagreement last night, a bitter argument over the president's decision to host those taliban leaders at camp david, something we reported that john bolton was strongly against along with several other members in the administration. i should stress it was not just john bolton who thought it wasn't a good idea to not only not host them on u.s. soil but at camp david. it urged the president and seemed to be the last straw for john bolton before he's ending his tenure here at the white house, which we should note comes as a surprise to many since the white house just announced not long ago that john

bolton was going to participate in a briefing at the white house in less than an hour alongside treasury secretary steve mnuchin and secretary of state mike pompeo. now we are expecting just the two of them to do that briefing, but of course they want to focus on this executive order on counterterrorism, but john, there are going to be a lot of questions about the president's national security team. >> good luck with the attempt to focus on anything but this abrupt resignation. kaitlan collins, i appreciate the live reporting. now the president looking for his fourth national security adviser. michael flynn was the first. he resigned in disgrace, of course, cut a plea deal in the russia special counsel investigation. h.r. mcmaster came in next. many disagreements with the president. a former military leader and much more of an establishment republican. many disagreements now with the president, john bolton gone as well. the president looking for his fourth national security adviser. michael warren of cnn joins our conversation. i just want to note, this from mitt romney on capitol hill. senator mitt romney of utah calls john bolton's departure a

huge loss for the administration. quote, the loss of john bolton as a senior leader in foreign policy is an extraordinary loss for our nation and the white house. an example there, there is a lot of mistrust, anxietanxiety, str among establishment republicans like senator romney about the president's foreign policy instincts. >> that's right, and john bolton in a lot of ways seen as the last hawk in the room. a lot of questions now about who is going to be in that room with the president helping him make these decisions. i do think you looked at those past national security advisers trump has had. it almost seemed like it was going to end this way with john bolton. we have to remember how exactly he got into this role in the first place. he was speaking a lot as a fox news contributor, a channel the president likes to watch. he was also watching a lot of op-eds that was getting in front of the president in the early months of his administration. that probably was the apex of john bolton's actual personal

influence on the president. once he got into the white house, he had a lot of influence on the structure of the national security council of those offices and that inner process, but he did lose that perch, that ability, because he was running up against profound disagreements on the middle east, north korea and even south america, latin america with where the president's policies were going. it was sort of inevitable that it would end this way, but certainly the fireworks that were coming out in the immediate aftermath weren't necessarily predictable. >> we bring a little more reaction from capitol hill from republican senator lindsey graham of alabama. here's his reaction just moments ago. >> every president needs to have confidence in their national security adviser. i like john bolton. i think he sees the world for what it is. i've always had a similar view

of the threats that we face, but the personal relationship between the president and the national security adviser is important. i think that the view that there is some public discussions about bolton being on the other side of the taliban probably was a bridge too far. but the bottom line is i appreciate what john bolton had done and now the president can pick a national security adviser he has more confidence in. >> more of a milquetoast answer from senator graham. he was asked if he wanted the job, and he laughed and said no. he does not want to pick a fight with the president publicly, although we know on many of these policy issues, he would be more in camp bolton than camp trump, right? >> yeah, and they all -- not all, clearly not bolton -- learned how to deal with trump in this sort of milquetoast

answer from lindsey graham who is a more clear republican, and pompeo in the same way, he's learned how to deal with the president. sycophant might be too harsh a word, but i think that's what the president responds to, that's what he likes. you see him with those cabinet meetings and everyone is praising him as if he is the dear leader, and bolton wasn't that person. he never was going to be that person. in many ways, the president should have known that to begin with. why he brought him in here, kind of bull in the china shop, it was a bad hire from the beginning. >> i want to just make sure we make clear, the personality conflict between the two is based on significant policy differences. number one, the president was upset. bolton thought the republican pressure and the support for ron gui guido in venezuela. when it came to the taliban, it

was more distrusting. so those two don't agree on the front stage right now. >> we're talking about lindsey graham, mike pompeo, these are men who get along personally well with the president. they play golf with him, they joke with him. john bolton was never going to fill that role. i think it's also important you're seeing the sort of dismay from hawkish republicans because i think they fear that the influence of someone like rand paul, much more of an isolationist, much more restrictionist on american foreign policy. he's out there on twitter now praising the firing of john bolton. those two do not get along in any way. i think there is a lot of fear among more establishment hawkish republicans that this could suggest rand paul is on the rise. >> rand paul on the rise, secretary pompeo who we expect to see in the briefing room there pretty soon. it would be interesting to see

what he had to say about this, especially for the conflict of all the turnover in the trump administration, secretary pompeo was just home in kansas the other day and he has gone from, no to, well, i'm not so sure about running for the senate. does he see this as a way of getting away from the power of the president, or does he see this as, maybe i want to be center to p-- senator pompeo. >> to your point about all of the decisions where trump was at odds with bolton, the theory of men like bolton, mattis, if you just tell the president he's great, you can get him to do things. just keep flattering trump and you'll end up being able to sway him. it actually doesn't work. i think a lot of these establishment republicans see trump as a man without principles and therefore they can fill the void with their own

idealogies, but trump does have a few north stars when it comes to policy. we certainly saw that with trade where he ended up having to kick all of the free traders out of the administration in order to get his way along with peter navarro and bob light howhouser. that's happening like lindsey graham, if you just play enough golf games with him, you'll get him to bend to your point of view. no, he's still going to talk to the north koreans, he's still going to talk to putin. you're not going to change his mind about those things. >> in lindsey graham's case, at least you'll get him to be on your side in a potentially tough legal battle. that one worked for lindsey graham. when we come back, more on the developing story, john bolton leaving the white house. the israeli prime minister makes an announcement and there is a special election underway right now in north carolina.

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bolton just this morning led a so-called principles meeting. that is the top security team at the administration. bolton running that meeting this morning, no indications that his ouster was imminent. that's what we're told this morning. i want to bring in admiral john kirby, our diplomatic analyst, into the conversation. admiral, you have a lot of experience for people who work in these positions. what do you make of this? >> that's something to be chairing a principles meeting that the night before you said you were going to resign, you were going to retire. that's very, very unusual. look, i think we had a long discussion on the show about the implications here, what happened, and i know we'll find out more going on, but it's important to find out how key this job is and all the issues we have going on. we talked about afghanistan, north koreans saying they're ready to start more negotiations. they have a lot going on, so i hope the president is able to fill this job quickly because

there is plenty of need for it. >> help me put this in context. there were different people who did this job in different ways. some viewed themselves as a coordinator, not as a policy voice. john bolton clearly viewed himself as a policy voice. >> john, you hit on the right issue. each president decides for himself or herself who that national security adviser is going to be and what type of job they want that person to do. in some administrations it is more of a facilitator. you're making sure all the inter-agency views are represented. like this morning, some are more policy ald vdvisers there. they are an equal voice trying to influence the president's decision. it all comes down to what the commander in chief wants in that job. now he's yet on another hire for national security adviser. who he picks, it will tell you a lot about what he expects of that job, not just that person. >> admiral kirby, appreciate your insights. in the little time we have left, every time there is a big turnover, chaos, personnel

issues in the white house, there is another wrinkle that makes you go, huh, the president knew this, john bolton knew this, yet he sits down this morning in a cabinet meeting to talk about policy as if nothing is going on, huh? >> from john bolton's account, which is a tweet so i don't want to read too much into it, but if john bolton is telling the truth, and he the president had some kind of discussion, possibly an argument last night. bolton said, if that's the way you feel, i'm willing to resign. trump said, let's talk about this tomorrow. so bolton took that as, okay, i guess he's not accepting my resing natires i resignation and says, well, i guess i'm still on the job. then then he finds out from twitter and sees that the president did accept his resignation, so he makes it sound like he was fired rather than resigning. >> from historical standards, this is not normal. obama had three security advisers in his eight years,

clinton only had two, and trump is looking for his fourth now. trump is meeting with republican leaders later today, so they will try to influence it. >> they're going to have some questions, and yes, maybe some recommendations. i appreciate your patience during this hour. brianna keilar picks up coverage after a quick break. the mobile app makes it easy to manage your policy, even way out here. your marshmallow's... get digital id cards, emergency roadside service, even file a... whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa! oops, that cheeky little thing got away from me. my bad. geico. it's easy to manage your policy whenever, wherever. can i trouble you for another marshmallow?

i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters and we start with major news from president trump on twitter that he has fired his national security adviser john bolton. here's the tweet. 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. i thank john very much for his