Breaking News - This morning Bolton Tells it Like it is in an exclusive - Good Morning America
It's what most of us with a functioning brain already realized. Indeed, it's been obvious.But good to hear, nonetheless, as more confirmation from yet another Trump appointee.
Hopefully, it will add significant nails in the coffin of a subsequent Trump attempt at personal gain through another "so-called" presidency and finally awake the brain-dead Trumpettes to reality.
In response to:
Bolton: Trump's not 'fit for office,' doesn't have 'competence to carry out the job'
CONOR FINNEGAN
Good Morning America
June 18, 2020, 6:01 AM EDT
President Donald Trump is not "fit for office" and doesn't have "the competence to carry out the job," his former national security adviser John Bolton told ABC News in an exclusive interview.
In an explosive new book about his 17 months at the White House, Bolton characterizes Trump as "stunningly uninformed," ignorant of basic facts and easily manipulated by foreign adversaries.
But his assessment that Trump is not "fit" to be president is among the most stunning indictments of a sitting president by one of their own top advisers in American history.
"There really isn't any guiding principle that I was able to discern other than what's good for Donald Trump's reelection," Bolton told ABC News chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz.
"He was so focused on the reelection that longer-term considerations fell by the wayside," he added.
Bolton was Trump's longest serving national security adviser, accompanying the president to his two summits with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, his infamous meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin, and several key meetings with China's Xi Jinping, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other world leaders on the sidelines of major events, like the G-20.
He departed the White House on Sept. 10 -- saying he submitted his resignation letter after months of disagreement with the president, who countered that he fired Bolton first.
Bolton argues that Trump was more focused on those photo ops than advancing America's national security or foreign policy goals, writing in his book, "The Room Where It Happened," that he's "hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn't driven by re-election calculations."
A hard-liner on North Korea who has advocated for a preemptive strike on the country's nuclear facilities, Bolton was particularly aghast at Trump's diplomatic outreach to Kim, writing, "I was sick at heart over Trump's zeal to meet with Kim Jong Un."
Asked about Trump's three meetings with Kim in particular, Bolton told ABC News, "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 position of the United States."
Bolton blasts what he sees as Trump’s confusion of personal relationships with good foreign relations in his book, which is out June 23 but an advanced copy of which was obtained by ABC News.
"North Korea had what it wanted from the United States and Trump had what he wanted personally. This showed the asymmetry of Trump's view of foreign affairs. He couldn't tell the difference between his personal interests and the country's interests," wrote Bolton.
That view has endangered U.S. national security, Bolton said.
Bolton: Trump's not 'fit for office,' doesn't have 'competence to carry out the job'
CONOR FINNEGAN
Good Morning America
June 18, 2020, 6:01 AM EDT
President Donald Trump is not "fit for office" and doesn't have "the competence to carry out the job," his former national security adviser John Bolton told ABC News in an exclusive interview.
In an explosive new book about his 17 months at the White House, Bolton characterizes Trump as "stunningly uninformed," ignorant of basic facts and easily manipulated by foreign adversaries.
But his assessment that Trump is not "fit" to be president is among the most stunning indictments of a sitting president by one of their own top advisers in American history.
"There really isn't any guiding principle that I was able to discern other than what's good for Donald Trump's reelection," Bolton told ABC News chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz.
"He was so focused on the reelection that longer-term considerations fell by the wayside," he added.
Bolton was Trump's longest serving national security adviser, accompanying the president to his two summits with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, his infamous meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin, and several key meetings with China's Xi Jinping, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other world leaders on the sidelines of major events, like the G-20.
He departed the White House on Sept. 10 -- saying he submitted his resignation letter after months of disagreement with the president, who countered that he fired Bolton first.
Bolton argues that Trump was more focused on those photo ops than advancing America's national security or foreign policy goals, writing in his book, "The Room Where It Happened," that he's "hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn't driven by re-election calculations."
A hard-liner on North Korea who has advocated for a preemptive strike on the country's nuclear facilities, Bolton was particularly aghast at Trump's diplomatic outreach to Kim, writing, "I was sick at heart over Trump's zeal to meet with Kim Jong Un."
Asked about Trump's three meetings with Kim in particular, Bolton told ABC News, "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 position of the United States."
Bolton blasts what he sees as Trump’s confusion of personal relationships with good foreign relations in his book, which is out June 23 but an advanced copy of which was obtained by ABC News.
"North Korea had what it wanted from the United States and Trump had what he wanted personally. This showed the asymmetry of Trump's view of foreign affairs. He couldn't tell the difference between his personal interests and the country's interests," wrote Bolton.
That view has endangered U.S. national security, Bolton said.
Comments (2)
One of the few other senior advisers to Trump with whom Bolton did not openly clash was John Kelly, perhaps because they both shared an outsized disdain for the President.
Kelly, the retired Marine general who served as the second of Trump’s four-and-counting White House chiefs of staff, sat Bolton down to brief him a couple of days before Bolton’s first day on the job, in the spring of 2018. Trump swears and speaks to his staff in “rough language,” Kelly cautioned Bolton. Trump routinely attacks the two previous Republican Presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, and despises those who served in their Administrations, as Bolton did. Trump changes his mind “constantly,” Kelly said.
Bolton was nothing if not forewarned. Two years and two months after that conversation, Bolton has come forward to say in public what Kelly told him privately that day—and much more. The ultimate score-settling in the book is not with Pompeo or Mnuchin. It is with Donald Trump, a man so corrupt and profoundly unsuited for the Presidency that his own national-security adviser, a lifelong Republican with unimpeachable partisan credentials, came to believe he adopted “obstruction of justice as a way of life.”
The election of Trump is arguably one of the worst mistakes the US has ever made.
It is an embarrassment, that can't end soon enough. Those who have enabled his corruption should be held accountable.