President Donald Trump praised his new National Security Adviser John Bolton during a meeting alongside senior military leadership and Vice President Mike Pence on Monday, saying that he will be a "fantastic representative" on his team.
"He's highly respected by everybody in this room and John, I want to thank you very much," Trump said to Bolton, who served as United Nations ambassador during the George W. Bush administration. "This is going to be a lot of work. Interesting day. He picked today as his first day, so generals, I think he picked the right day, but certainly you're going to find it very exciting because you are going to do a fantastic job and I appreciate you joining us."
After praising Bolton, Trump was asked why he won't just fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been leading a probe into whether Trump's presidential campaign colluded with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election.
"Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens, but I think it's really a sad situation when you look at what happened and many people have said, 'You should fire him.' Again, they found nothing and in finding nothing that's a big statement," Trump said. "If you know the person who's in charge of the investigation, you know all about the deputy [attorney general] Rosenstein. Rod Rosenstein. He wrote the letter very critical of [James] Comey."
He went on to criticize former FBI director James Comey and the FBI, adding that Rosenstein did the "right thing" by firing him.
"We'll see what happens. I think it's disgraceful and so does a lot of other people. This is a pure and simple witch hunt," Trump concluded.
The FBI raided the office and hotel room of Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen earlier on Monday after prosecutors obtained the search warrant. They received the search warrant after receiving a referral from Mueller, prompting Trump to call it a "disgraceful situation."
"I have this witch hunt constantly going on," Trump said.