John Bolton rejects Trump firing claims, insists he resigned

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John Bolton rejects Trump firing claims, insists he resigned

National Security Adviser John Bolton's exit comes amid policy disagreements with President Trump; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Star panel.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," September 10, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: He has strong views on things, but that's OK. I actually temper John, which is pretty amazing, isn't it?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: I have John Bolton, and I have other people that are little more dovish than him, and ultimately I make the decision.

HOGAN GIDLEY, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: John Bolton's policies and priorities did not align with President Trump's. Last night the president of the United States asked John Bolton to tender his resignation. It was delivered to the president today.

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI, D-CALIF., HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Wow, one more day of chaos. One more day of what in the world is going on at the White House. There were concerns from the get-go about John Bolton.

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The president is entitled to the staff that he wants at any moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, HOST: Well, John Bolton is no longer national security advisor. If you believe him, he resigned. If you believe the president, he was fired. Either way, this is now a search for the fourth national security advisor in two years and eight months. There are the previous three. Now looking for a fourth. We had Senator Graham on the show earlier. He put forward three names. He talked to the president today, so those are informed names, Keith Kellogg, Brian Hook, and Ricky Waddell.

So, where are we on this, and what does it mean? Let's bring our panel, Tom Bevan, Real Clear Politics co-founder and president, Mara Liasson, national political correspondent for National Public Radio, and Katie Pavlich, news editor at Townhall.com. Mara, in that briefing today, Secretary Pompeo looked a little happy. He looked a little giddy, I think.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: He is the last guy standing. He is now the Trump administration's foreign policy principal, and there is nobody competing with him. So yes, he's pretty happy.

BAIER: Policy, personality, what do we think happened here?

LIASSON: Both, both.

TOM BEVAN, REAL CLEAR POLITICS CO-FOUNDER: Yes, both. And Trump talked about the fact he kind of liked this good cop/bad cop routine. John Bolton sort of served a purpose for a while, but I think over time the clashes became cumbersome for Trump and a little bit more than he probably wanted in the administration. And so he's on the hunt for a new national --

BAIER: Let's take another listen to Pompeo from that press briefing about -- you know what, I'm going to save it for later. Katie, your thoughts on Bolton?

KATIE PAVLICH, NEWS EDITOR, TOWNHALL.COM: So based on who I talked to today in his administration but Bolton's departure, it seems like John Bolton became too much of an independent operator. There were decisions made by the administration, specifically by the president, and John Bolton would then refuse to go out and back foreign policy decisions that had been made. And that didn't just happen once or twice on a couple of issues. It would happen on a regular basis.

I was also told that he would often take these elaborate overseas trips with a lot of national security staff from the NSC, and that was something that required a lot of resources and not necessarily part of his job, which was to gather information from a number of federal agencies that deal with national security, present it to the president for decision.

So I think it was a matter of John Bolton not being necessarily a team player, thinking that his strategy was better and not backing the president publicly when it came to the big decisions.

BAIER: Also had a statement back in May where the national security advisor had announced the deployment of a carrier strike group for the Iran protection. He was kind of bold in that way, but in some way, he was not allowed into some meetings, we were told, when it came to Afghanistan, South Korea.

LIASSON: He not only was sidelined in Washington, he was sent to Mongolia during a North Korea meeting. Being sent to Mongolia -- I guess if he had been sent to outer Mongolia it would have been even worse. But the point is he was being sidelined. But look, John Bolton was not at the White House to further his career or to climb the greasy pole. He's had strong views for a long time, and the question for him -- I remember doing a story when he was first appointed. The question was raised was how long would he stay given that he had clear potential big differences with Donald Trump?

PAVLICH: I think today Mike Pompeo and Secretary Mnuchin tried to make clear that the Iran policy is not changing just because John Bolton is no longer there. They will continue their pressure campaign moving forward. And it really today, the Bolton news distracted away from what Pompeo was announcing, which was a modernization of sanctions against terrorist leaders around the world that makes it easier for the United States to target terrorist leaders in different countries when they are leading and not necessarily planning operations. That got lost in the fray.

BAIER: But he also may, he may sit down with the Iranian president, which obviously Bolton would not have been a fan of.

One last graphic here. All of the national security officials in one way or another who have resigned or been fired. There's a lot on this list, and I asked Senator Graham earlier, what about the turnover and what that means or says or signals around the world. Tom?

BEVAN: Well, it signals -- these are tough jobs to begin with under optimal circumstances, and obviously Trump is a tough guy to work for. He improvises, he's impulsive. He announces things by tweet, catches people by surprise. And so that makes it extraordinarily tough for these folks. And again, the personality thing and the trust thing is very big with Trump, and if you lose any semblance of that, then you are not long for the job.

BAIER: We will follow all of this.

Next up, the CIA versus CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The reporting is materially inaccurate. And you should know, as the former CIA director, I don't talk about things like this very often. It is only the occasions when there's something that I think puts people at risk, or the reporting is so egregious as to create enormous risks to the United States that I even comment in the way that I just did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: The secretary of state today commenting on the CNN story that the U.S. extracted a top spy inside Russian in 2017 essentially because Donald Trump mishandled classified information. The CIA putting out a statement saying this is misguided speculation and it's inaccurate. You hear the secretary of state, former CIA director. Back with the panel. Tom?

BEVAN: I think Lindsey Graham was actually being too kind when he called this story B.S. earlier. This was an abomination, what CNN did here. This story was long, complicated, and all of it took place, or most of it took place in 2016 before Trump even took office. They asked this spy, they tried to get him out, he said no. And then they went back to him after they administration -- the Obama administration had released this report, public report on how Russia had interfered with the election, and they were concerned his safety, and then went back to him and got him out. Trump had nothing to do with this, and yet they framed the story that way specifically to try and hurt him.

BAIER: The guy was pulled out, but you're right, it was the timeframe, and the reporting was heavily on the President Trump part.

LIASSON: The story is amazing without that. We got a human asset out safely. That's pretty great given how many Russian people are killed --

BAIER: Not great that we don't have the intelligence asset.

LIASSON: That was bad, but the point is the guy wasn't murdered like so many others are.

Yes, but the story of Donald Trump possibly sharing intelligence with the Russians, we don't know what he talked about with Putin because he took the interpreter's notes. That's a separate story. It doesn't seem like there's the connection to this episode.

BAIER: And the pushback, it's rare to see the pushback from the CIA and the former CIA director, now secretary of state.

PAVLICH: And the story frames it as this was something President Trump did. But when you look at the consistency between "The New York Times" story and the CNN story, which were at odds on a lot of points, they both consistently said one of the main reasons why the asset was pulled out of Russia is because of all of the media attention. So you could argue that all of the media attention actually did a lot more damage than what they argued falsely that President Trump did. And if there are serious questions about why this asset was pulled out, John Brennan, the former CIA director, should be asked some questions about that rather than pinning it on Mike Pompeo and on President Trump.

BAIER: This is a cycle, though, that we see all the time, right? It's overshooting one way or another, and the president or the administration saying, see, we told you so.

BEVAN: Now, this is a perfect example of one network in particular, but the media in general deciding they want to hurt Donald Trump, and so they shoehorn a story that really has nothing to do with him into a frame that tries to hurt him. And the media actually, to Katie's point, made it worse by reporting that this ex-spy is now living in the Washington area. Why would you even do that?

LIASSON: A reporter went up to his house and knocked on the door.

BEVAN: Yes, it's terrible.

BAIER: We've got to run. Panel, sorry, a little shorter tonight.

When we come back, a video we need to show again.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Finally tonight, if you watch "The Five" you probably saw this, but we don't care. Two-year-old boys Maxwell and Finnegan in New York have been friends for more than a year. They live in the same neighborhood. They started riding the bus together to daycare. Can we requeue this thing? Maxwell's dad Michael posted this video of the two boys spotting each other, and Michael thought it was too good not to share. There it is. That just makes your day.

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for the “Special Report,” fair, balanced, and unafraid.

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