Florida Republicans had no clue about John Bolton leaving

Sen. Rick Scott was supposed to meet with National Security Advisor John Bolton at 2 p.m. Tuesday, the latest in an ongoing effort by the most vocal Florida Republican trying to squeeze Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro out of power.

Then came the presidential tweet.

Donald Trump’s latest high-profile firing via Twitter, complete with a Twitter rebuttal from Bolton just minutes later, caught Republicans in Washington off guard and could be a blow to Venezuela hawks like Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio, also of Florida.

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“I did not see it,” Scott said, when he was informed by a reporter of Bolton’s ouster. “I have a good working relationship with Bolton. I was supposed to talk to him at two o’clock. I hope that they [the White House] can continue to commit to do everything we can to get rid of Maduro. I’ve had a very good working relationship with Bolton whether it’s talking about Venezuela, Cuba or Hong Kong.”

Rubio also said he had a good relationship with Bolton but added that it’s up to Trump to decide who works in the White House.

“We worked very well with him and in my view he did a good job, but ultimately that’s the president’s decision to make,” Rubio said. “He has a right to have people around him that he wants.”

Rubio wasn’t sure what Bolton’s ouster meant for Venezuela policy eight months after the U.S. recognized Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate leader and began ratcheting up sanctions on Maduro’s inner circle.

“I don’t know, nor do I know enough about what the circumstances were behind it, so we’ll obviously see here in the next few days,” Rubio said. “It’s my personal view that he did a good job, but he didn’t work for me, he worked for the president.”

Maduro remains in control of Venezuela’s military and bureaucracy despite efforts by Guaidó to oust Maduro amid a humanitarian crisis and rampant inflation.

Even the White House was unaware of Bolton’s imminent ouster on Tuesday morning, sending out a notice just before 11 a.m. that Bolton would brief reporters along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Tuesday afternoon.

An hour later, Trump tweeted, “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.”

Bolton disputed the nature of his ouster in his own tweet minutes later.

“I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow,’” Bolton tweeted.

Republican opponents of intervention in Venezuela cheered the move.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Trump “deserves to have someone around him who agrees with his policy.”

“The threat of war worldwide goes down exponentially with John Bolton out of the White House,” Paul said, calling Bolton’s “advocacy for regime change around the world a naive worldview.”

“The world will be a much better place with new advisers to the president and hopefully somebody who’s actually listening to what the president says when he says over and over again that he wants to bring America’s longest war to a close,” Paul said.

Trump has long touted himself as a different style of Republican who is opposed to foreign intervention around the world, though Venezuela appeared to be an exception.

Trump almost assuredly needs to win Florida in 2020 if he wants a second term, and his advisers identified tough talk on Venezuela as an issue where he can rail against socialism and make inroads with Venezuelan and Cuban voters in South Florida. The country’s largest Venezuelan communities are concentrated in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who called for the U.S. military to enter Venezuela in May, said Trump deserves a national security advisor who shares the president’s world view. While Graham was with the president on Air Force One Monday night, he said he had no advance warning of Bolton’s firing, though he knew there was friction in their relationship.

“I think the president deserves someone he has confidence in,” Graham said. “It’s clear to me that the relationship had soured and I hope he’ll pick a national security advisor he has confidence in. I appreciate John Bolton and he sees the world for the dangerous place that it is.”

McClatchy reporters Emma Dumain, Lesley Clark, David Lightman and Bryan Lowry contributed to this report.