Think it will be true after 2016. So i think youre going to have a minuscule thirdparty vote. Its going to be up or down. Charlie cook, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it. Thanks. That is tonights last word. The 11th hour with Brian Williams starts now. Tonight, john bolton is out after a rocky tenure as National Security adviser. Its either a firing or resignation depending on which story you believe. Now the white house looking to hire its fourth National Security adviser in just three years. This comes amid a conversation already spun up over the president s changing the weather forecast, denying a business arrangement in plain sight, which may help to explain some big, bad, new Polling Numbers just out. Plus, a former counterintel chief of the fbi is here with us for an update on that russian asset who alerted america to putins meddling in our 2016 election. And Steve Kornacki at the big board with the North Carolina special election
results tonight as The 11th Hour gets under way on a tuesday night. Well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 964 of the Trump Administration. Real quickly here tonight, in political news, nbc news projected a short time ago that when all the votes are counted, dan bishop, the republican, will hold the North Carolina 9th Congressional District for the republicans. That special election in the district that trump visited last night. And as we get into the rest of todays news, the headline tonight, yet another staff shakeup in the trump white house. National security adviser john bolton is out. After 17 months on the job. Bolton was trumps third National Security adviser in less than three years. That means tonight, put a different way, they are searching for their fourth National Security adviser in three years time. Trump announced hed fired
bolton this morning on twitter writing, 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 service. I will be naming a new National Security adviser next week. Minutes later bolton responded with a post of his own. I offered to resign last night and President Trump said lets talk about it tomorrow. He also in a text message to nbc news wrote, i offered to resign last night. He never asked for it directly or indirectly. I slept on it and resigned this morning. Boltons predecessors had equ equally abrupt exits for their part. Mike flynn, you may recall, lasted all of 24 days. He later pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi about his communications with russia. Ironically, flynn was in Federal Court just today on related
matters. At the same time, boltons departure was being announced. Then there was h. R. Mcmaster, he was pushed out in March Of Last year after disagreeing with the president on several Foreign Policy issues. In another twist, nbc news Reports Trump has been reaching Tout Mcmaster for advice on National Security issues of late even while bolton was still serving in the post. Today white house spokesman hogan gidley echoed the president s explanation for john boltons departure. John boltons priorities and policies just dont line up with the president s and any sitting president has the right to put someone in that position that can carry out his agenda. That became no longer tenable so the president made a change. Hogan gidley in the drivedri, a reminder they have a Briefing Room there. Great and detailed reporting out tonight takes advantage of a deeply leaky white house to point out the tensions between bolton and the president. Washington post son tis on th board with this. Bolton did not like trumps
repeated meetings with kim jongun and had argued against directly meeting with iranian officials. He also did not like the president s repeated insistence that russia rejoin the group of seven nations. It had been reported one of boltons main adversaries in the administration is that man, Secretary Of State mike pompeo, a Smiling Pompeo talked about bolton during a White House Briefing held in the actual Briefing Room. That the nowformer National Security adviser was supposed to attend, himself, less than an hour after trumps announcement. The president s entitled to the staff that he wants at any moment. He should have people that he trusts and values and whose efforts and judgments benefit him in delivering american Foreign Policy. There were many times ambassador bolton and i disagreed, thats to be sure. Were you two blind sided by what occurred today . Im never surprised. The times writes pompeo, has proved more adept at managing the president and subordinating his views to mr. Trumps while mr. Bolton kept pushing his beliefs even after they were rejected. Mr. Pompeo did not see mr. Bolton as a team player but as someone who undermined the president s policies. And politico is reporting for months the Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson had been lobbying President Donald TrumpTo Fire John Bolton and frequently told trump that bolton not only wasnt on his team but was using the news media against him. That would be something approaching full circle for john bolton who came to trumps attention initially because of his frequent appearances on fox news. Ultimately, i think our objective should be to overthrow the regime in tehran. I think the only diplomatic option left is to end the regime in north korea. The question, how do you know that north korean regime is lying . Answer, their lips are moving. Then came this. Once bolton was on trumps team, signed up, trump often referred
to boltons aggressive stance on National Security issues. John bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was up to him, hed take on the whole world at one time. I have john bolton who i would definitely say is a hawk and i have other people that are other side of the equation. Yeah, johns very good. John is a he has strong views on things, but thats okay. I actually temper john, which is pretty amazing, isnt it . Nobody thought that was going to im the one that tempers him, but thats okay. Boltons departure puts him at the end of a very long and growing roster of Trump Officials who have either been ousted or resigned since the beginning of this still young presidency. Deputy National Security adviser Charles Cupperman is taking over boltons job on an interim basis which brings us to our leadoff discussion on a tuesday night. Phillip rucker, Pulitzer Prize winning White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post. Jeremy bash, former chief of
staff at the cia and pentagon as well as former counsel to the house intel committee. And kimberly atkins, Senior Washington correspondent for wbur, bostons npr news station. Welcome to you all. Phil, id like to begin with you. Just tonight, Tucker Carlson, by the way, is quoted as calling this a great day for america and saying of bolton, hes a man of the left. What is your afteraction report . Was this Loyalty Problems or leaks . Was this outside voices or actual policy . Brian, its basically all of the above, and by the time bolton left the administration, the list of his detractors, of the people inside the administration who did not admire him, was quite long. It included, by the way, the first lady and the chief of staff, mick mulvaney. Trump and bolton have disagreed from really the beginning of this relationship, especially on north korea, but also on afghanistan, on iran, on other
issues. The problem for trump in recent weeks, however, is that boltons disagreements increasingly became publicly known through media reports. Bolton, of course, denies that he has leaked those sorts of details, but it bothered the president that the disputes that these discussions they were having especially on afghanistan and those peace talks with the taliban were coming into full view and there was really a breakdown in the way that the National Security apparatus of the administration was working. Bolton in the final weeks, according to my colleagues reporting at the post was not even on speaking terms with the Secretary Of State mike pompeo and trump saw that as a real problem and started to really resent bolton. I talked to a Senior Administration official, former official, earlier today, who said that bolton really acted like a big shot in the white house. He had a big entourage. His aides were more loyal to him than to the president , himself. The president ultimately got sick of that. Jeremy bash, two points here. Number one, this is hardly the
first time we have seen tension between two powerful jobs in the modern era. National security adviser and the white house. Henry kissinger and Secretary Of State. Point number two is an example from rand paul of some of the reaction today. Lets listen together. John bolton out of the white house, the threat of war around the world is greatly diminished. The president really does want to end the war in afghanistan. I think he could, but he needs people around him who support the vision hes putting forward. So, jeremy, after all this, do you think this marks any change in direction on policy for this presidency . Well, i think the president makes it up as he goes along. You know, he he improvises Foreign Policy. Theres no doctrinal north star. For that reason, john bolton who very much came out of the school of being a muscular internationalist, really favored
military intervention in the context of iran, did not like cozying up to putin, did not like the bromance with kim jongun, and obviously was very wary of doing a peace deal with the taliban that would remove u. S. Troops and intelligence professionals from afghanistan during the 9 11 anniversary week. And so this clash in some ways was inevitable and i think it shows you the extent of the chaos, the extemtent of the dysfunction. These are critically important jobs because donald trump is very lucky, we have not had a major National Security crisis, a nokidding fullblown crisis, an attack on the homeland or some significant military confrontation, and when that happens, you need professionals around you who can give you the honest facts and the best advice. Yeah, jeremy, i was thinking earlier tonight, we have a look at one of the Testing Sessions for what were going to see tomorrow evening. This is, after all, the eve of
the 9 11 anniversary. Hard to believe its been 18 years. And tomorrow evening over lower manhattan, we will see those two shafts of blue light that still puts a lump in your throat. To your point, god forbid we have not witnessed a genuine crisis because thats the day you realize the job of National Security adviser in the white house is one of the most consequential in the free world. Absolutely. The fundamental aspects of the job are to bring together the folks from the other agencies, the director of national intelligence, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the secretaries of defense and state and the other cabinet leads and to provide options to the president , to amass the facts, to consult with allies, partners around the world, and to give the president options to respond to a crisis. John bolton had basically become a Cable Tv Commentator in the white house. With no mandate other than to
push his own views and his agenda. Thats what got him crossways but also shows how dysfunctional the National Security process has become under President Trump. Kim, at the start of our broadcast, we showed a piece of video that we didnt explain, and that was while this was all going on, shortly before the announcement, the camera crews that are always camped out in the driveway and the Briefing Room saw john bolton all by his lonesome on his cell phone come out of the Northwest Portico there in the west wing, no marine present, just standing there, still the National Security adviser to the preside president , making a phone call. Next time we heard his name, it was his departure. Kim, you covered this crowd for a long time. Youve talked to a lot of people. Is the lesson of this that if you manage up, your chances at longer tenure are better . Essentially. I mean, this is the white house that is run by President Trump. When he was first elected, there was a lot of talk, particularly when it came to things like the National Security apparatus, that President Trump might be sort of an empty vessel or a blank slate through which others could kind of govern and just use him as a means to get there. Were seeing increasingly that that just isnt the case. President trump likes to surround himself with people, as secretary pompeo said, who he trusts, but the problem is finding people who can trust him and trust that they would listen to his advice and do the job that they allow them to do the job that theyre there to do. President trump is very interested in who contradicts him, particularly publicly. I think this all came to a head, clearly, because of the reports that there was dissension within the white house, not just between bolton and the president , but of dragging the Vice President into it, too,
with news reports suggesting he was on boltons side when it came to that meeting with the taliban leaders that never happened. That seemed to really anger this president. One thing that im hearing from the hill, of course, from a lot of lawmakers, you talked about some of the republicans who were not sad to see bolton go. Certainly the democrats were not fans of bolton. I think Tucker Carlson is wrong there. Theres a lot of theres still a lot of dismay because theyre saying at a time where theres so many big issues in National Security and foreign relations, we have foreign we have Prime Minister benjamin netanyahu, for example, just as all this was happening was claiming that the United States was going to assist him or be cooperate with him in annexing parts of the west bank. Theres a lot going on, and the National Security apparatus is in complete disarray. Theres no sense of whos in charge. The president is Firing People on twitter. And all that makes it very
difficult for the United States to lead. So its a lot of chaos and confusion. Its something that the president doesnt seem to mind so much, but certainly folks on the hill and elsewhere are very concerned about it. Terrific point, where netanyahu is concerned. One of the stories that did get by today. Hey, jeremy, Newspaper Reporters love the expression, being mentioned for the job. Who is being mentioned for the job . I think ive read 10 to 12 names today. Who wants this job, phil . Well, its hard because this person will be the fourth National Security adviser and i think they were worried that their tenure would end badly just as the three predecessors had to worry. There are a couple people throughout the administration. There are some ambassadors currently serving in posts and there are some others from the outside who i guess trump likes their commentary. None of these are sort of the most prominent senior National Security progressfessionals fro
establishment. Someone will fill the job, although i think effectively pompeo will be like kissinger and serve effectively as both Secretary Of State and National Security adviser at the same time. Because everything goes back to henry kissinger. Phil rucker, your paper among those out with new polling and the number is rather shocking. Washington post poll, 38 approve, 56 disapprove. C, cnn poll, 39 approve, 55 disapprove. Either way, thats a long way underwater for a sitting president. Hes shown he has a ceiling thats under 50 , but phil rucker, a lot of people are drawing a clear red line from what weve bee