Trump calls John Bolton 'disgruntled boring fool', says ex-NSA's memoir made up of 'lies and fake stories'
President Donald Trump launched a no-holds-barred attack against his former national security adviser (NSA), John Bolton, after head-turning contents from the latter’s upcoming memoir were leaked in the public via media reports. He even called him “a disgruntled boring fool”. The book ‘The Room Where it Happened: A White House Memoir’ is set to be released on June 23 but its copies have already reached a number of media houses despite the administration suing Bolton to block the book's publication. Bolton made a series of stunning revelations that are bound to torpedo the Trump camp ahead of his re-election bid in November.
Trump, who was aghast over the idea of publicizing the content, which he said was classified, took to Twitter to blast Bolton. In a tweet, he used a number of negative terms to describe his former NSA, who he sacked last September over differences over foreign policy matters. He said the book, penned by the 71-year-old Bolton, was full of “lies and fake stories." “Wacko John Bolton’s 'exceedingly tedious'(New York Times) book is made up of lies & fake stories. Said all good about me, in print, until the day I fired him. A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war. Never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped. What a dope!” the maverick president said.
Bolton is known for his hawkish foreign policy stance and backed hard policies against countries like Iran and North Korea that could have pushed the US into more wars abroad, something Trump has opposed to. The president wanted to have talks with North Korea and did not go to war with Iran that left Bolton extremely disappointed. The clash between Trump’s inward-looking policy and Bolton’s interventionist ideas eventually saw the latter's exit after he served for almost a year and a half. Trump had said when Bolton was still in his team: “I’m the one that tempers him. That’s okay. I have different sides. I have John Bolton and other people that are a little more dovish than him.”
President Bush fired 'incompetent' Bolton, Trump claims
In another tweet, in which Trump was responding to a post by right-wing author Dinesh D’Souza, he said Bolton is “incompetent” who was fired by President Bush as well. D’Souza, in his post, stated Trump once saying that if he listened to Bolton, "the United States would be in, like, World War VI." Bolton has decades of experience in America’s successive administrations and has served in a number of Republican presidencies starting from Ronald Reagan (1981-89), George H W Bush (1989-1993), George W Bush (2001-09) before joining Trump’s team in April 2018.
Bolton made a number of startling revelations about Trump in his memoir claiming that the POTUS was not aware that Britain is a nuclear power; sought help from China to use its economic power to help him win the re-election; backed Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in the Jamal Khashoggi murder case to divert the media’s attention from the Ivanka Trump private email server fiasco; offering favors to dictators and thinking that Finland was a part of Russia.
Bolton a washed-up guy, Trump told Fox
Trump also criticized Bolton during an interview with Fox News in which he called the former NSA a “washed-up guy” and dismissed the claims he made in his tell-all book. “He broke the law. Very simple. I mean, as much as it’s going to be broken,” the president told host Sean Hannity. “It's highly classified information and he did not have approval.” On the issue of Bolton’s revelation about Trump seeking help from China, the president said no other leader has been as tough with China before him. “Nobody has been tougher on Russia or China than I have. Nobody even close. China's paying us billions of dollars a year. They never gave us 10 cents [before], and [Joe] Biden's son walked away with a billion and a half dollars to manage, making hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars on it,” he said.