Donald Trump unable to differentiate between his private affairs and the nation’s interests, says ex-adviser John Bolton
President Trump has recently called his former National Security Adviser a lot of names.
A traitor. A wacko. A sick puppy.
You get the picture. Donald Trump doesn’t like John Bolton.
In particular he doesn’t like In The Room Where It Happened, the memoir of the 17 months of Bolton’s time in the inner sanctum of America’s foreign policy decision-making machine.
In my interview with John Bolton, the longtime hawk is withering about the President’s intellectual calibre and moral character.
He tells me that Trump doesn’t even understand the oath of office he took at his inauguration.
Bolton adds witheringly that the President has no ability to differentiate between his private affairs and the nation’s interests.
I asked Bolton whether he believes - given he had access to America’s inner-most secrets - Trump is either an agent of the Kremlin’s or under President Putin’s influence.
Not an agent, Bolton replied, but so incompetent that Presidents Putin, Xi and Kim Jong-un are able to run rings around him.
As Bolton tells it, the White House is a chaotic, erratic, and wild place to work.
And what about the President’s obsession with Twitter?
On that, Bolton gives Trump some credit.
Apparently, the President deliberately uses it to provoke his enemies, instructing his staff to add random capitalisations designed to drive his critics mad.
So perhaps there is method in the Twitter madness.
So who will John Bolton, a longtime Republican conservative, vote for in November?
Neither for Trump, nor for Joe Biden.
Instead, he will write in the name of someone else as a protest at the choice the American people face in November.