Carl Bernstein: Bolton Firing Evidence of Trump 'Governing Crisis'

John Bolton's firing marks the most "convincing evidence we've seen of late" that there is a "governing crisis" under President Donald Trump, even though the two men were never a good fit, "All the President's Men" author Carl Bernstein said Tuesday. 

"Jonn Bolton is a right-wing, neocon ideologue," Bernstein told CNN's Brooke Baldwin. "The last thing Donald Trump is is a conventional ideologue."

Trump has said he asked for Bolton's resignation, but the now-ex national security advisor says he offered to step down Monday night, but under either scenario, there is a "dire crisis" under Trump's administration, said Bernstein. 

"The national security of the United States is not secure" because of Trump's conduct, said Bernstein. "He cannot conduct a coherent presidency, a coherent administration."

Bolton has already called Trump a "liar" over the ouster, said Bernstein, but there is something even more important: "We don't have functional governance for the first time in our modern history in this country because of the conduct of this president of the United States."

And now, with Bolton out, Trump will have a fourth national security adviser taking office while the "unresolved and dangerous" issues of North Korea, Iran, Venezuela and more are continuing, said Bernstein.

"(Trump is) handling them in a way that is demonstrably dangerous instead of, again, a systematic conduct of the presidency of policy that relies on facts, that relies on process, that relies on expertise," said Bernstein. "This is seat-of-the-pants governance that is not working and our allies in particular, as well as our enemies, have picked up on this. And we are now in — we're destabilized as a result of this president's weaknesses."

Meanwhile, several members of Congress are calling on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to resign after reports he threatened to fire top officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration unless they agreed with Trump's statements about Hurricane Dorian impacting Alabama. 

"It's not about Wilbur Ross, the ultimate toady, as it were," said Bernstein. "It's about incoherence, a lack of inability to function as president of the United States in a way that is open to fact."

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