As best as we can tell, the conversation in the White House started as a policy discussion about border security. As NBC News reported, it didn’t end that way.
The differences escalated to an angry, profanity-laced exchange on Thursday between White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton as a Honduran migrant caravan of roughly 4,000 people approaches the U.S. border. The dispute was so heated, according to several people, that Kelly ended up storming out of the White House shortly afterward.
NBC News spoke to four people familiar with what transpired, who agreed that the meeting began with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen explaining a recent increase in border crossings, which led John Bolton to blame her for failing to do more. Kelly sided with Nielsen, telling Bolton he failed to appreciate the substantive challenges.
According to three people familiar with the exchange, Kelly repeatedly used the f-word to punctuate his points. These people said Kelly, who had served as Trump’s first Secretary of Homeland Security, fiercely defended Nielsen, who has come under fire from Trump over her handling of the border.
The advisers then went into the Oval Office to discuss the matter with the president. Kelly ultimately stormed out of the White House early with no resolution on the issue, these people said.
“I’m f—ng out of here,” Kelly said, according to one person briefed on the exchange. The
Trump later told reporters he “had not heard about” the profanity-laced White House argument, which, like so much of what the president says, seems very hard to believe.









