Interesting interview with John Bolton

I urge everyone to watch this video, in which former Ambassador/National Security Advisor John Bolton speaks in a very matter-of-fact way about Trump. He doesn't pontificate, spin, use cheap shot language, is respectful of the office, and just tells it like he thinks it is, and, in my view, he is accurate.

Here are the salient points he makes:

• Trump is not fit to be president and lacks understanding of national security issues.
• Despite serving four years, Trump did not learn much about how the government operates or national security.
• Trump's decision-making is anecdotal, ad hoc, transactional, and self-serving.
• He sees everything through the prism of how it benefits him personally.
• Many of Trump's top aides, including Bolton, believe he is not suitable for office.
• Trump's approach to international affairs is simplistic and lacks depth.
• Trump admires leaders like Putin and Xi who are less constrained by their respective systems.
• Bolton believes Trump would prioritize personal relationships over national security interests.
• Trump's behavior, especially on January 6th, disqualifies him from being president.
• Trump's rhetoric and actions, such as praising insurrectionists, are dangerous and disturbing.
• Bolton warns that Trump might follow through on his threats, such as withdrawing from NATO.
• Many former high-ranking Republicans, including Bolton, have spoken out against Trump, citing his unfitness for office.
• The collective experience of those who worked closely with Trump suggests that he is a danger and problem for a second term.

Partial transcript:

Meiseles: So, how big of a threat, Ambassador—I mean, you served as Donald Trump's National Security adviser—how big of a threat do you say Donald Trump poses to our national security?

Bolton: Well, I think the basic problem is he's not really fit to be president. Having served four years, you know, he came into the White House not knowing much about how the government operated, not knowing much about National Security. Over a four-year period, he didn't manage to learn very much. He doesn't appreciate the issues, he doesn't focus on strategy, philosophy, policy; he doesn't do any of that. As many people have observed across the range of government affairs, he's anecdotal, ad hoc, transactional, and worst of all, he sees everything through the prism of how does this benefit Donald Trump. So when you come to trying to make decisions on National Security issues, he's not focused on what's at stake for the United States, what our options are, how we can protect our interests in the most effective way. And no president comes into the office fully equipped for all the challenges they're going to face; the job is too big. But responsible presidents learn and avoid mistakes they've made in the past. For Trump, every day is a new day. That's the way he's said he ran his real estate business, and maybe that was successful for him, but that's not the way you run the White House.

Meiseles: You've worked in other administrations, you've worked in government for a long time. I'm not revealing any state secrets here, I don't think. Did you ever expect anything like this? I mean, has this exceeded even your worst expectations of the depths of the worst possible scenarios, seeing Trump?

Bolton: Well, it did. I mean, a lot of people say, "How could you ever go to work for somebody like that?" And very few people have ever called me naïve. I had heard pretty much everything there was that people had said about Trump before I joined the White House. But I believed that, like every one of his predecessors, certainly in the national security field, that Trump would be disciplined by the gravity of the issues he faced, the weight of the responsibility, the enormous consequences of where he came down on particular issues.

And I found, to my dismay, that he was not disciplined by the gravity of the job that he held. Trying to keep things moving in a direction, almost moving in any direction consistently, proved almost impossible to do. And I would say the number of senior Trump advisors, again, primarily in national security matters but in many others as well, who have come to the conclusion that he's really not suitable for the office, I think is unprecedented in American history. And I would just underline, these are not—it's true in my case, but I think it's true in all the others as well—these are not people who are disagreeing with particular policy outcomes on this issue or that issue.

I think many of the decisions Trump made were correct, but it was like rolling dice whether you would get him to that point or not. And that's just not how, particularly in a very challenging time in international affairs, you want a president to perform. So, when so many of his top aides decide and say publicly they don't think he should be reelected, I think that's a legitimate cause for concern. Because you have to ask then, who's going to go to work for him in a second term?

As a hard right winger Bolton is, I don't agree with Bolton on domestic issues, but I don't profess a lot of knowledge on foreign policy, so I'm not going to comment on his foreign policy, which I've heard is jingoistic, but, I don't know, but I don't think that impairs his judgement about Trump.

 

Fear is all the Democrats have...lol

 

You might want to talk about the rest of the story.
"Bolton also offered some strong criticism of Biden's administration while speaking with CNN on Tuesday. The former national security adviser described the president's actions as "extraordinarily weak" and said that Biden has put America "more in danger" during his time in office."
Trump and Biden Are Both Wrong for the White House: John Bolton (newsweek.com)

 

Bolton thinks that the President's primary job is to be the authoritarian Leader to advance the Free World.

Trump thinks that the President's primary job is to be the authoritarian Leader to advance the United States.

Biden isn't effective enough as an authoritarian leader in either sphere of activity to please Bolton.

 

Please read the OP and the Transcript provided or watch the video.

 

But Bolton didn't say Biden was unfit or didn't understand the dynamics of the job or understand the protocols of International Relations and historical contexts and things of this nature. He described that deficiency to Trump.

 

Did you miss the part where he said " Biden has put America "more in danger" during his time in office." I worry more about the "more in danger" than anything Trump has done. And there was more in the article.

 

You mean the guy who wanted to nuke everyone but Trump wouldn't let him?

 

Has there ever been a war,
John Bolton wasn't for?

 

Bolton is a well known war hawk who sees war as the first, not last resort in most cases. That people on the left are now using him to attack Trump is kind of bizarre.

 

This post is NOT ABOUT POLICY. Yes, we know Bolton agrees more with Trump than Biden on policies.

POLICIES are not the point.

FITNESS for the office is the point. Bolton did not say Biden was unfit for the office, and he did say that about Trump, and went into great detail as to why.

Some 24 (or thereabouts, it's a lot) close staff and associates of Trump's first term DO NOT SUPPORT TRUMP for a second term. NO ONE ON BIDEN'S Staff is claiming he is unfit for office.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?

Read it again, and pay closer attention to what Bolton is saying about Trump

Meiseles: So, how big of a threat, Ambassador—I mean, you served as Donald Trump's National Security adviser—how big of a threat do you say Donald Trump poses to our national security?

Bolton: Well, I think the basic problem is he's not really fit to be president. Having served four years, you know, he came into the White House not knowing much about how the government operated, not knowing much about National Security. Over a four-year period, he didn't manage to learn very much. He doesn't appreciate the issues, he doesn't focus on strategy, philosophy, policy; he doesn't do any of that. As many people have observed across the range of government affairs, he's anecdotal, ad hoc, transactional, and worst of all, he sees everything through the prism of how does this benefit Donald Trump. So when you come to trying to make decisions on National Security issues, he's not focused on what's at stake for the United States, what our options are, how we can protect our interests in the most effective way. And no president comes into the office fully equipped for all the challenges they're going to face; the job is too big. But responsible presidents learn and avoid mistakes they've made in the past. For Trump, every day is a new day. That's the way he's said he ran his real estate business, and maybe that was successful for him, but that's not the way you run the White House.

Meiseles: You've worked in other administrations, you've worked in government for a long time. I'm not revealing any state secrets here, I don't think. Did you ever expect anything like this? I mean, has this exceeded even your worst expectations of the depths of the worst possible scenarios, seeing Trump?

Bolton: Well, it did. I mean, a lot of people say, "How could you ever go to work for somebody like that?" And very few people have ever called me naïve. I had heard pretty much everything there was that people had said about Trump before I joined the White House. But I believed that, like every one of his predecessors, certainly in the national security field, that Trump would be disciplined by the gravity of the issues he faced, the weight of the responsibility, the enormous consequences of where he came down on particular issues.

And I found, to my dismay, that he was not disciplined by the gravity of the job that he held. Trying to keep things moving in a direction, almost moving in any direction consistently, proved almost impossible to do. And I would say the number of senior Trump advisors, again, primarily in national security matters but in many others as well, who have come to the conclusion that he's really not suitable for the office, I think is unprecedented in American history. And I would just underline, these are not—it's true in my case, but I think it's true in all the others as well—these are not people who are disagreeing with particular policy outcomes on this issue or that issue.

I think many of the decisions Trump made were correct, [See kriman, it's not about policy] but it was like rolling dice whether you would get him to that point or not. And that's just not how, particularly in a very challenging time in international affairs, you want a president to perform. So, when so many of his top aides decide and say publicly they don't think he should be reelected, I think that's a legitimate cause for concern. Because you have to ask then, who's going to go to work for him in a second term?

DO YOU UNDERTSTAND THAT TRUMP IS NOT FIT FOR THE NUCLEAR CODES? UNFIT, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?

This is not debatable. Biden's policies ARE debatable.

 

Not at all. The OP is not about his policy views. It's about his observation of Trump's fitness for the presidency.

Just because someone has a policy view you disagree with, doesn't mean they are going to be inaccurate about a character assessment of the president.

 

Ok fair enough... but Trump has better policy views than Bolton does, and worse character. Trump, yes, is all about his ego, but Bolton is all about making war. I know which I'd prefer. Less dead people is my choice.

 

"Has put America more in danger" says it all and is pretty much what I have been preaching for all these years. Note, that he did say put in danger, but MORE in danger. That means more than what it was in the past, i.e. Trump.

 

One thing that amazes me about Trump is that so many see him as the cause and not as a symptom .
There are hundreds of smart, young, capable people on both sides of politics, yet you end up with Trump vs Biden. You should look into why.

 

And of course the salient question is when has John Bolton ever been right about anything? Please note in the end like most of the DC critics of Trump all of Bolton's complaints about Trump boil down to he wouldn't follow my advice. To which the answer, obviously, is why should he? You haven't been right this century.

 

Im not interested in what Bolton has to say. He lied us into a war and has no regrets.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/...-war-criminal-terrorist-ties-not-just-hawkish

Tho Trump did hire him anyway. I think its more cuz Trump doesnt pay very good intention to who he hires, just has someone scan their resume. But Trump associated himself with this POS, so fair game.

 

If you define young as under fifty, and not you have to older than 36 to be president, there are very few in positions of leader ship in this country who count as young. And the few that are don't count as remarkable for their competence note Kamala. and Bootygig both of whom come across as pretentious idiots.

 

I thought like most of his worst hires beginning to end Bolton was and attempt to placate neocons and Bushies and to be the bad cop in the tandem who themselves being idiots give Bolton vastly more credit than he deserves.

 

You should seek to change that. There are plenty of highly competent people in the USA between the ages of 36 and 50 who are capable leaders and not pretentious idiots. You get who do you because of the way the political systems (and parties) are structured. Both Biden and Trump are remarkably bad choices given all the highly intelligent and capable people who are Americans.

 

Trump had the nuke codes for four years...

 

Prolly. Still a fail.

 

True enough but at that time he needed them they have now most left the stage so he no longer does. That makes a difference/

 

Most of those can make more money with far less aggravation in the private sector. There was a lady sylvia something had a column in the local paper some years back, One of the bon mots there in was the idea that any one willing to crawl through all the crap one must crawl through in order to become president of this country almost certainly shouldn't be allowed within a mile of the job.

 

Thanks for sharing. Great article! I'm pretty sure this is the one that gets me to not vote Trump. Thank you.