President Trump once prided himself in the fact that he had stocked his administration with capable military men like ex-Defense Secretary James Mattis and now-former Chief of Staff John Kelly. But as both men have departed his administration - with Mattis explicitly citing Trump's decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan and Syria, and Kelly criticizing these decisions in an exit interview - Trump Monday morning lashed out at "failed generals" who "complain" about Trump's decision to fulfill his campaign promise to finish the "never-ending" wars in the US.

Taking another shot at Kelly, who left the administration during an acrimonious battle over President Trump's promised border wall, Trump responded to Kelly's exit-interview claim that the 'border wall' isn't actually a wall (he said 'barrier' or 'fence' would probably be more appropriate).

President Trump was unsurprisingly less than pleased to hear Kelly once again publicly question the president's dedication to building a wall, and in a Monday morning tweet, Trump contradicted Kelly's assertion that plans for a concrete border wall had been abandoned during the early days of the administration after consulting with CBP agents. Instead, Trump insisted that "some sections" of the wall would be made of concrete, while other portions would be "see through" in accordance with the wishes of border patrol experts.

The tweet didn't mention Kelly by name, but Trump's dissatisfaction with his former chief of staff's decision to break with the party line was obvious to all. Though whether Trump will succeed in securing funding to start construction remains to be seen, as the partial government shutdown provoked by his funding battle with Democrats enters its tenth day, halfway to tying the longest shutdown ever.

During his interview with the Times, Kelly also said that the zero-tolerance policy at the border, which had resulted in the separation of children and parents, which caused international outrage, had been the then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision and it came as a "surprise" to the White House.

"What happened was Jeff Sessions, he was the one that instituted the zero-tolerance process on the border that resulted in both people being detained and the family separation," Kelly said.

Kelly, who held the "bone-crushing hard job" of chief of staff for a year and a half, also said that Trump never asked him to break the law, saying that if the president had said "do it, or you're fired" he would have resigned

The North Korean leader made it clear that going back to saber-rattling is not what he wants: "If the US responds to our active and preemptive efforts with trustworthy steps and corresponding behavior, [North Korea-US relations] will move forward at an excellent and fast pace," he stated, as cited by Yonhap.

"We will never tolerate outside interferences and interventions intended to block our way toward reconciliation, unity and the unification of our people, while trying to make our relations scummy to their states and interests," the North Korean leader said, adding that "significant" agreements achieved during 2018's three inter-Korean summits could be "regarded as non-aggression treaty."

• True: Khashoggi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, WaPo carried his articles supporting them
• Report says Khashoggi's Whatsapp texts revealed plans to create opposition movement
• Qatar has been corrupting the National Security Deep State for years

• Trump pushes out Mattis months ahead of schedule
• Post-Syria, it's time for Trump to clean house at the National Security bureaucracy
• Trump vs. the National Security State: The Chances of a Revolution in US Foreign Policy

• The Mattis Dilemma and what it means
• Days after Trump calls for pulling US troops out of Syria, US Defense Secretary Mattis resigns