President Trump took a shot at former national security adviser John Bolton a day after he was fired from the position.
Trump was asked about what led to Bolton’s departure while he was speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon. The president announced on Tuesday that he had asked for Bolton’s resignation, while Bolton pushed back saying that he offered it to the president.
“So John is somebody that I actually got along with very well. He made some very big mistakes. When he talked about the Libyan model for Kim Jong Un, that was not a good statement to make. You just take a look at what happened with Gadhafi. That was not a good statement to make. And it set us back. And frankly, he wanted to do things not necessarily tougher than me. John’s known as a tough guy,” Trump said of Bolton.
“He’s so tough, he got us into Iraq,” he went on. “That’s tough. But he’s somebody that I actually had a very good relationship with, but he wasn’t getting along with people in the administration that I consider very important.”
The president then shifted topics, only to return to his former adviser shortly thereafter.
Trump continued, “You know, John wasn’t in line with what we were doing, and actually in some cases, he thought it was too tough what we were doing. Mr. Tough Guy. You know, you have to go into Iraq. Going into Iraq was something that he felt very strongly about. So we’re right now in for over $7 trillion into the Middle East. I don’t say it was his decision. You had a president, and you had other people also, but he was very out there, I can tell you, and wanting to have them do it.”
[Related: Bolton ouster stuns Congress]
