DENVER – If President Trump values loyalty in his inner circle, then he found the right man in John Bolton to be his new national security adviser.

Bolton replaced H.R. McMaster Thursday in the latest eruption in the Trump White House.

Bolton will be Trump’s third national security adviser in his short presidency. But last summer Bolton was a featured attraction at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver at the six-month mark of the Trump era. He left no doubt he’s a Trump man prone to talk tough.

He said then that if Russia interfered in America’ election it should be considered cause for war.

He speculated that Trump delivered a message during meetings with Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit in Germany two weeks earlier.

“We believe efforts to interfere in American elections constitutes an existential threat to the idea of America,” Bolton said. “We are an exceptional country because we are the only country founded on the idea of individual liberty and control over our government.

“And when the Constitution is interfered with, especially by foreigners, we consider that an act of war.”

But in his new job, protecting Americans, Bolton told the Denver crowd it was the nation’s top priority.

“There are a lot of critical issues of domestic policy that deserve our attention,” Bolton said. “But my view is that if the safety of the country is at risk all the other issues are secondary.”

He said Trump inherited an America at risk from its enemies from around the world.

“The last administration had weakened America,” the former ambassador and conservative presidential adviser said.

Bolton said the strength of the American military is the backbone of diplomacy.

Sounding very Trump-like, at least in tone, Bolton said, “It’s not American strength that’s provocative. It’s American weakness that’s provocative.”