With his trademark bushy mustache and sharp tongue, Mr. Bolton, 70, has been a leading national security hawk for years, making a name for himself as a supporter of the Iraq war, a champion of American sovereignty and an unrelenting critic of international organizations and arms control treaties. After leaving Mr. Bush’s administration, he harshly criticized the 43rd president for going soft in negotiations with North Korea.
Mr. Trump picked Mr. Bolton in part as a reaction against the narrative that the current and retired generals in his administration were really running things, and in part to find a polar opposite of Mr. Bolton’s predecessor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster. It also helped that Mr. Bolton had the support of Sheldon G. Adelson, the casino mogul and Republican financier who has been a key backer of the president.
Unlike General McMaster, Mr. Bolton figured out how to brief Mr. Trump in a more effective way, according to administration officials, but the two have never bonded on a personal level, which is so important in this White House. Mr. Trump is not fond of Mr. Bolton, according to a half-dozen advisers and associates, and he makes no secret of it in private.
And in some fundamental ways, the two diverge sharply over their approach to the world. Mr. Trump came to office vowing to pull out of overseas wars and has made diplomacy with North Korea a signature initiative. Mr. Bolton has been an advocate of military action and an opponent of negotiations with North Korea.
In private, Mr. Trump has made fun of his adviser’s militant reputation, suggesting that he was the one restraining Mr. Bolton rather than the other way around. “If it was up to John, we’d be in four wars now,” one senior official has recalled Mr. Trump saying.
At a recent meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Mr. Trump pulled Mr. Adelson aside and asked how he thought Mr. Bolton was doing, according to a person briefed on the conversation. Mr. Adelson said that if Mr. Trump was happy, then he was happy.
But it was not clear if he was happy. When Mr. Trump sours on an adviser, he often conducts informal surveys of people in his circle asking how they think that adviser is doing, his way of contemplating whether he should make a change. In the case of Mr. Adelson, the president may also have been testing the reaction of Mr. Bolton’s backer, wary of offending the Republican megadonor.
