Bolton is the 7th Cabinet-level official Trump has fired via Twitter

Outgoing national security adviser John Bolton on Tuesday became at least the seventh key figure in the Trump administration to be fired over Twitter.

“I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House,” Donald Trump wrote, setting off an embarrassing back and forth as Bolton quickly told reporters that he quit and was not fired.

Others on the Trump team quickly began pushing Trump’s version of events, including deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, who made a terse announcement to the press in the driveway of the White House.

At a press conference, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, standing alongside Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, insisted that all was well.

“We work very closely with the president of the United States. I think we have a pretty good understanding of how he’s thinking about things,” said Pompeo.

The assertion is questionable, particularly since the press conference the two men were speaking at was originally billed as a three-man event — with Bolton scheduled to appear alongside Pompeo and Mnuchin.

Before Bolton was dumped, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was probably the most prominent person to be fired by tweet.

Tillerson publicly acknowledged that he was surprised in March of last year after Trump announced that Pompeo was replacing him.

Chief of staff Reince Priebus was squeezed out in July of 2017 as Trump announced that he would be replaced by John Kelly. After the humiliating change was publicly announced, Priebus’ car was pulled out of the presidential motorcade.

Then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resigned in December of last year, and while Trump initially accepted the departure, he turned it into firing him by tweet a few days later — seemingly after he recognized Mattis criticized his foreign policy approach in his resignation letter.

Abruptly, Trump then announced that Mattis would be out of his job months before he had scheduled. The announcement led to the longest vacancy in the key position in American history.

Trump pushed out Dan Coats, his director of national intelligence, with a tweet in July.  That ouster occurred after Trump was reportedly angered by congressional testimony from the official accusing Trump of softness toward Russia.

Ryan Zinke left his scandal-plagued tenure as secretary of the Interior Department after a Trump tweet in December announced the change.

David Shulkin told CNN last April that he was given a heads-up that his time as secretary of Veterans Affairs would be ended by a Trump tweet.

“General Kelly gave me a heads up that the President would most likely be tweeting out a message in the very near future, and I appreciated having that heads-up from General Kelly,” he explained.

Trump has experienced massive turnover at the most senior positions within his administration, with Bolton taking his place as the 18th such departure since January of 2017.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.