Mayank Chhaya–
John Bolton, the U.S. National Security Adviser (NSA) under Donald Trump, has said his former boss is “unfit to be President” and warned, “If his first four years were bad, a second four will be worse,” according to excerpts quoted by several media outlets.
In a new 18-page foreword to his memoir ‘The Room Where It Happened‘, which is out in paperback now, Bolton paints a dire picture of what Trump’s return to the White House for a second term could do to America.
“Trump really cares only about retribution for himself, and it will consume much of a second term,” Bolton says, adding that, “He cares almost exclusively about his own interests.” That would lead him to create a “White House of serfs” who would follow his diktats blindly.
Bolton, who was Trump’s NSA for 17 months between 2018 and 2019, has been unsparing in his denunciation of the former president calling him self-regarding.
He offers across-the-board criticism of Trump, including saying that in his second term he could withdraw the US from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), restrict support for Ukraine and stand aside to let China impose a blockade on Taiwan as part of his isolationist foreign policy. He says the second Trump term would see him favor Moscow on the Ukraine question.
Bolton has also written terms of Trump sending an “isolationist virus” through the Republican Party, adding that “in no arena… has the Trump aberration been more destructive than in national security.”
This is by far the sharpest all-round criticism of Trump by someone who had the powerful perch as the NSA, a role in which he saw the former president up close and personal every day.
“It is a close contest between (Vladimir) Putin and Xi Jinping who would be happiest to see Trump back in office,” Bolton writes.
Bolton has been among Trump’s most strident critics, but that does not seem to have swayed opinion with his Republican base which has solidly stood behind him. The former NSA had implicitly teased a presidential run for himself in the middle of last year but with two Republican primaries done and Trump having won both handily, it is highly unlikely if Bolton would jump into the fray.
As has been the case since his rise in 2016, any criticism or denunciation of Trump merely bolsters his standing within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base. To that extent, Bolton’s views are not expected to move the needle against him.
