WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is bracing for a possible strike in Syria. Preparations for a high-risk North Korea summit are barreling forward. The White House staff is on edge, unsure who will be fired next, and when. And the national security team is holding its breath to see whether their new leader will be a shock to the system.
Enter John Bolton, the pugnacious former U.N. ambassador who took over Monday as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser — the third person to hold the job in barely 14 months. Mr. Trump’s selection of Mr. Bolton last month set off a guessing game in Washington as to just how much of an imprint his take-no-prisoners approach to foreign policy will have on Mr. Trump’s team, already beleaguered and exhausted after a tumultuous first year.
If Mr. Bolton had any first-day jitters, he had little time to indulge them. A daunting to-do list has awaited him, punctuated over the weekend by a suspected chemical weapons attack by Syria’s government that led Mr. Trump to start exploring potential military retaliation.
Although Mr. Bolton didn’t formally start until Monday, he was spotted entering the White House over the weekend, carrying an umbrella as he strolled down the driveway toward the West Wing on a rainy Saturday.
And on Monday, he appeared at his first Cabinet meeting, where Mr. Trump talked up his forthcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, chided China for taking advantage of the United States and condemned the “atrocious” chemical attack in Syria. Mr. Bolton didn’t speak, but was seated prominently behind Mr. Trump as reporters were briefly allowed into the meeting.
“I think he’s going to be a fantastic representative of our team,” Mr. Trump said later in the day. He pointed out the fact that Mr. Bolton was starting in the midst of an urgent situation with Syria, adding: “Interesting day.”
And on Tuesday, Mr. Bolton urged Mr. Trump to skip his trip to South America this week because of the ongoing crisis in Syria, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.
Apprehension outside the White House about Mr. Bolton’s influence has been matched by hand-wringing in the West Wing about whose fortunes will rise and fall in the Bolton era.
In Mr. Trump’s reality-show-infused White House, it’s become a truism that when a powerful aide departs — like the chief of staff, national security adviser or a Cabinet secretary — others who were considered aligned with that aide are often the next to go. There have been many such shake-ups, even in just the past few weeks. And Mr. Bolton, in his former jobs at the U.N. and at the State Department, developed a reputation as someone who doesn’t suffer fools quietly.
Although it’s unclear whether Mr. Bolton will “clean house,” two U.S officials and two outside advisers to the administration said that the White House has been considering a significant staff shake-up in the part of the NSC that handles the Middle East. That comes as Mr. Trump prepares for a key decision next month on whether to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, the 2015 accord that Mr. Bolton has long derided.
Before starting the job, Mr. Bolton provided the White House with names of staffers he wanted to bring in, but the list consisted mainly of people associated with his political action committee, The John Bolton Super PAC, one individual with knowledge of the list said. All of the individuals weren’t authorized to discuss internal White House deliberations and requested anonymity.
It was unclear whether any of Mr. Bolton’s favored candidates were being hired. In recent months, Mr. Trump’s administration has increasingly struggled to find qualified candidates who are eligible for high-level security clearance, are willing to join the White House and haven’t been disqualified for other reasons, such as past public criticism of Mr. Trump.
Even before Mr. Bolton started, rumors were circulating about potential exits on the national security team. The night before Mr. Bolton started, Michael Anton, the National Security Council’s spokesman and a public face for the administration, resigned. Although the White House said Mr. Trump thanked Mr. Anton for his service, two people familiar with the situation said he resigned after learning he would be fired, and his departure marked another moment of upheaval in an administration marked by months of in-fighting and high-level departures.
In the weeks since being named to the post, Mr. Bolton has quietly sought to calm concerns that he would push a more militaristic, hawkish approach on the president, considering his previously expressed support for pre-emptive military action against North Korea and regime change in Iran.
Although he stayed out of the public eye, showing deference to outgoing national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Mr. Bolton privately told some foreign embassies and influential foreign policy experts that he planned to approach the job more like a traffic cop, guiding a decision-making process in which the president can hear competing views, individuals familiar with those conversations said.
Yet inevitably, Mr. Bolton’s past statements in public jobs and as a Fox News commentator follow him into the job. At the White House press briefing Monday, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about a comment Mr. Bolton made in 2013 on “Fox and Friends” — he said he would have opposed a congressional vote to use military force in Syria.
“The point of view that matters most here at the White House, as you well know, is the president’s,” Ms. Sanders replied.
Frank Gaffney, a longtime Bolton associate and former Reagan administration official who runs the far-right think tank Center for Security Policy, said Mr. Bolton views his role as “to help the president get his program implemented.” Mr. Bolton has been “preparing his whole life to be in this job,” Mr. Gaffney said.
Yet in his 2007 book “Surrender is Not an Option,” Mr. Bolton reflected on his decision to take a job at the U.S. Agency for International Development after President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated rather than work at the White House, out of concern his own voice would not be heard.
“Being on the White House staff was fun,” Mr. Bolton wrote. “But I wanted ‘line’ responsibility — to manage something and to change it, not simply to be ‘staff,‘ even at the White House.”
Mr. Bolton’s start comes after the tortured exit for Gen. McMaster, Mr. Trump’s second national security adviser, a three-star general who never developed a strong personal bond with the president. While the White House said Gen. McMaster’s exit had been under discussion for some time and stressed it was not due to any one incident, it came after months of speculation about his future in the administration.
For Mr. Bolton, the new assignment may require a form of diplomacy that his previous roles did not, one that eluded his predecessor as well as Rex Tillerson, the recently ousted secretary of state.
Mr. Bolton may amplify Mr. Trump’s most bellicose instincts, as their critics fear, but the two differ in key areas and even admirers wonder what will happen then.
“How will he manage Trump?” asked Eric Edelman, an undersecretary of defense under then-President George W. Bush who was often allied with Mr. Bolton. “Trump may love to see John defending him on Fox News. But when John is going to be responsible for policies, he has very strong convictions on things, some of which won’t line up with the president’s.”
“John, for all of his bluster, his conservative and hawkish bluster, is a pragmatist in my view,” former Secretary of State James Baker said in an interview. “He’s pragmatic enough to want to get things done. The most important thing to him is making it happen, not what the philosophy is after it happens so much.”
Mr. Bolton defines himself as an “Americanist” sworn to defend the interests of the United States. Too often, in his view, America has sacrificed its own sovereignty following the chimera of global governance.
“This is almost identical to President Trump’s theme of America First,” said Frederick Fleitz, a former intelligence officer who worked for Mr. Bolton. “Mr. Bolton disagrees with many of the Washington elite, or maybe the international elite, who think globalism or multilateralism should be a priority over the security of the United States. That’s exactly where President Trump is.”
Some of Mr. Bolton’s harshest critics are those who once worked with him. They use words like “arrogant,” “backstabber” and “disloyal” and others that cannot be printed in a family newspaper.“He has a very provocative style,” said Stephen Hadley, who was Mr. Bush’s national security adviser. “That’s why he was great on Fox. That’s why he was great on the speaking circuit. He loves to provoke. He loves the combat.”
Some view his ascension to the right hand of an already mercurial president with deep alarm.
“This will be the scariest thing that’s happened to us in 50 years,” said Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Powell when he was secretary of state. “Bolton is several things, none of them good. He’s an absolutely brutal manager, treats people like dirt. The stories that have come out are accurate, but they don’t go far enough. And he’s also possessed of some views that are just revolting.”
“John’s personality is also fairly explosive like the president’s,” he added. “I don’t know how that will work out. That will be John’s big challenge.”
Mr. Baker, who does not share Mr. Bolton’s hawkish views or approach to diplomacy, nonetheless praised Mr. Bolton, who worked for him in several capacities.
Mr. Bolton can surprise people with an unlikely charm and lively sense of humor.
“He was a pleasant guy personally, but a pleasant guy can still end up urging someone to use nukes, just as an irascible guy can,” said Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and Democratic Party chairman who was also paid to advocate for the group. “I know a lot of people who are a little crazy, who are pleasant.”
The New York Times contributed.
First Published: April 11, 2018, 1:15 p.m.