When President Trump tweeted Thursday evening that he was firing National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and replacing him with John Bolton, effective April 9, Bolton told Fox News a few minutes later that he'd been surprised by Trump's offer, though they had apparently discussed the move for weeks. But Trump's decision to fire McMaster so abruptly also "surprised senior White House aides who had been preparing a single statement announcing the departure of multiple top Trump officials," Politico reports, citing two senior administration officials.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who supported ousting McMaster, had been planning to announce the firing of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and maybe several senior White House aides at the same time as they announced McMaster's departure, Politico says. "It's unclear which other West Wing officials were possibly set to depart with McMaster, but the two senior administration officials said they believed it would be easier to manage the optics if multiple firings were made public in a single statement instead of drawn out."
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