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| - President Donald Trump ridiculed his former national security advisor John Bolton this week after Bolton threatened to become a prime witness against the US leader in the Senate impeachment trial. Trump was once a big fan of Bolton, but he now knows -- like so many other former Trump team members -- the US president's capricious heart. Here is a rundown of Trump's change of opinion on a number of his former top aides: After Bolton, known for his hawkish views, was recruited in April 2018, Trump had this to say: "Great John Bolton. They think he's so nasty and so tough that I have to hold him back, OK? It's pretty great." And now, four months after he fired Bolton, Trump tweeted that he "couldn't get approved for the Ambassador to the UN years ago, couldn't get approved for anything since, 'begged' me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying 'Don't do it, sir.'" "Frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now." Trump crooned about the former ExxonMobil executive when he picked him for secretary of state in January 2017. Tillerson "made some of the greatest deals ever made in the oil industry... A great diplomat," Trump said at one point. After Tillerson's exit on March 31, 2018, Trump labeled him "a man who is 'dumb as a rock' and totally ill-prepared and ill-equipped to be Secretary of State." Storied Marine General Jim Mattis, Trump's defense secretary, lasted longer than his ally Tillerson. When Trump chose Mattis, he lauded him as an "extraordinary leader" whose battlefield experience earned him the nickname "Mad Dog." After Mattis resigned in December 2018, Trump said: "I gave him big budgets and he didn't do well in Afghanistan. I was not happy with the job he was doing in Afghanistan." Others, like former White House chief of staff John Kelly, former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, served Trump with dedication but were also dumped on after their departures. "When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind," Trump said of Bannon at one point. Anthony Scaramucci, whose 11-day tenure as White House communications director is the shortest for any Trump team member, entered under a shower of compliments and left to a chorus of criticism. "Anthony is a person I have great respect for, and he will be an important addition to this administration," Trump said on July 21, 2017. Two weeks later, after Scaramucci left, Trump said he "was totally incapable of handling" the job. "Anthony Scaramucci is a highly unstable 'nut job,'" Trump tweeted. pmh/bfm/rbu
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