The former national security advisor to President Donald Trump has some choice words for his former boss. In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Bolton said that Trump wasn’t “fit for office” and doesn’t possess “the competence to carry out the job.”
“There really isn’t any guiding principle that I was able to discern other than what’s good for Donald Trump‘s reelection,” Bolton explained. “He was so focused on the reelection that longer-term considerations fell by the wayside.” He went on to say that he’s “hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations.” The interview comes ahead of Bolton’s controversial book release, The Room Where it Happened, which is the second tell-all book about the president due out soon.
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Bolton’s book makes numerous allegations about his storied 17 months at the White House, where he characterizes Trump as “stunningly uninformed,” ignorant of the most basic facts and easily manipulated by members of foreign governments. He was also the administration’s longest-serving national security advisor, leaving his position on Sept. 10 after numerous reported conflicts with Trump. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump responded to Bolton’s claims, calling him “a liar,” adding that “everyone in the White House hated John.”
Back in January, Bolton issued a statement saying that he was willing to testify in the impeachment proceedings. However, he was never called to testify after a hotly-debated vote in the Senate. Trump had been impeached by the House of Representatives back in December of last year, but the Senate voted not to remove him from the office back in February.
Trump, meanwhile, is planning on resuming his regularly-scheduled rallies, which are set to kick off in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday. While the first rally was scheduled for Friday, which was not only Juneteenth but near the date of the Tulsa Massacre’s 99th anniversary, the date was pushed back to Saturday after pushback. Although, the criticism didn’t stop there, given the fact that Oklahoma is one of several states that have seen a spike in coronavirus cases.
On Monday, the state saw an additional 186 cases, bringing the total number of positive tests in the state at 8,417. It also saw its most significant spike in a single day just days prior, with 225 positive cases, which surpassed their previous record. Despite the alarming statistics, Trump proclaimed that “Oklahoma has done very well,” on Monday, adding how it’s still at a low number because of his administration’s “fantastic work.”
