Former National Security Adviser John Bolton ripped President Trump in an interview with ABC News about his tell-all memoir that provides an account of his 17 month stint working in the Trump White House, saying the president was unfit for office and had made reelection his sole focus.
Bolton alleged that the president’s obsession with becoming a two-term president trumped advancing national interests.
BREAKING: "I don't think he's fit for office," former national security adviser John Bolton says of Pres. Trump. "I don't think he has the competence to carry out the job."
Watch more from Bolton's interview with @MarthaRaddatz Sunday at 9|8c. https://t.co/rTfQLohwWQ pic.twitter.com/ZtxD98iwyh
— ABC News (@ABC) June 18, 2020
“I think he was so focused on the reelection that longer-term considerations fell by the wayside,” Bolton said, citing Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. “So, if he thought he could get a photo opportunity with Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone in Korea, there was considerable emphasis on the photo opportunity and the press reaction to it and little or no focus on what such meetings did for the bargaining positions of the United States.”
The comments are a preview of what’s to come in an interview with ABC News scheduled to air on Sunday night. Despite an increasingly heated battle between Bolton and Trump, the former adviser has shown little hesitation in pushing ahead with his memoir, making media appearances to promote “The Room Where It Happened” while the White House attempts desperately to block the book.
Several news outlets obtained copies before the book’s anticipated release next week. The book paints Trump as a stunningly uninformed and egoistic leader.
Bolton alleges in one case that Trump sought the aid of Chinese President Xi Jinping to win reelection by pressing the Chinese leader to purchase more agricultural goods that would bolster support among American farmers. The ex-Trump adviser also claims that the president willingly ignored human rights abuses in China against Uighur Muslims, and that Trump relished the idea of jailing journalists.
Trump has responded with outrage, suggesting that the book warranted criminal charges denying many of Bolton’s allegations and calling his former adviser a “fool.”
