Every now and then American progressives and John Bolton find themselves in agreement. After all, they have one thing in common: Neither thinks Donald Trump was a terribly good president. Bolton should know: He worked for him. From 2018 to 2019, he was the former president’s National Security Advisor, and the two did not end on amicable terms. One book claims Trump wished Bolton, who’d previously worked for Reagan and both Bushes, would catch COVID and die.
Bolton has long trashed Trump right back, and he’s still at it. On Tuesday, Bolton — a noted hawk who’s repeatedly advised presidents to take aggressive stances — went on Newsmax, the virulently pro-Trump news network. And Bolton absolutely couldn’t stomach the host making dubious claims about the ex-president’s “pretty tough” stance on Russia. Among those was that Trump sanctioned Nord Stream 2, which runs from Russia to Germany.
Not so, said Bolton, who informed Newsmax host Rob Schmitt that “We didn’t sanction Nord Stream 2.” He added, “We should have … We should have brought the project to an end.”
Of the sanctions the Trump administration did impose on Russia, Bolton said that “in almost every case, the sanctions were imposed with Trump complaining about it and saying we were being too hard.”
Bolton then described Trump’s ignorance of the world stage. “The fact is that he barely knew where Ukraine was,” Bolton said. “He once asked John Kelly, his second chief of staff, if Finland were a part of Russia. It’s just not accurate to say that Trump’s behavior somehow deterred the Russians.”
He also said Trump “did not” handle Russia better than his successor, Joe Biden.
“I don’t think he understood what he was doing,” Bolton said. “This is not really a policy argument. This is about Trump’s lack of any significant historical knowledge, his lack of strategic thinking, and frankly his lack of thinking about pretty much anything that didn’t have to do with Donald Trump.”
Bolton also asserted that Trump only cared about Ukraine in 2019 because “he wanted that DNC server” and that “he wanted to apply pressure for his own political purposes.” He concluded that “Trump was not fit to be president. He was not competent to be president.”
Schmitt shot back, saying, “You worked for him, though.” That wasn’t quite the own he perhaps thought it was, Bolton informing him that his main reason for taking the job was “to help protect American national security.”
Since Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered forces to invade Ukraine, Trump and his cheerleaders have repeatedly claimed none of this would have happened were Trump still in the White House. Then again, Trump, like Tucker Carlson, has also gushed about Putin’s actions, calling them “savvy” and “genius.” Others have argued otherwise, including those, like Bolton, who know him all too well.
(Via Insider)
