Former national security adviser John Bolton said in an interview that his former boss, former President Trump, has the “brains” to become a dictator, amid questions about what President Trump’s second term will look like. He said there was no.
conservative french outlet store le figaro In an interview published Thursday, Bolton asked Trump whether he had authoritarian tendencies.
“He has no brains! He’s a real estate developer!” Mr. Bolton replied.
Trump, the only remaining candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán earlier this month. The meeting at the Mar-a-Lago residence continued with hugs with authoritarian leaders, part of a push back against democratic norms.
President Trump has praised several foreign leaders from countries the United States considers enemies. The former president said he received a “beautiful letter” from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and called Chinese President Xi Jinping “a very good person.”
Trump has long maintained that he would not become a dictator if re-elected “except on day one.”
“If Trump is re-elected, there is a very high possibility that he will leave NATO,” Bolton said.
President Trump has long criticized NATO members for failing to spend 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) and threatened to withdraw from NATO while in office. After telling President Putin that he would do anything to delinquent NATO members, President Trump doubled down on his own claims.
“When Trump comes up with an idea, he keeps coming back to it, then he gets distracted and forgets it, but eventually he gets the idea and acts on it. That’s why leaving NATO is a real possibility. A lot of people think it’s just a negotiating tool, but I don’t think so,” Bolton said in an interview. Translated by The Telegraph.
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