IRAN/MILITARY/NATIONAL SECURITY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Donald Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton, are engaged in an ongoing debate about how to handle Iran, a senior White House official told CNN. Trump moved to ease tensions with Iran on Thursday morning after Tehran downed a US drone near the Persian Gulf. In doing so, he struck a starkly different tone on Iran from Bolton and other senior security aides. After months of escalating steps by Iran and the US, Trump said Iran’s attack on the drone was probably an unintentional ‘mistake.’ The President’s tempered response stands in stark contrast to harsh public warnings from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and particularly the views of Bolton, who has publicly and repeatedly called for regime change in Tehran in the past. The senior White House official said that in the Iran debate between Trump and Bolton, officials such as Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence and incoming acting Secretary of Defense Mark Esper play the role of ‘swing votes.”
–Alex Marquardt, Michelle Kosinski, Zachary Cohen and Nicole Gaouette, “Trump and Bolton debate how to deal with Iran as Pompeo ‘triangulates,’ officials say,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, June 20, 2019 7:56 pm