Despite praising these rulers, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser said the former president “doesn’t have the brains” to lead a dictatorship.
In an interview with French conservative media le figaro, John Bolton, 75, was asked whether President Trump tends to reflect the kind of dictators he has admired in the past. Not only did Mr. Bolton disparage Mr. Trump’s intellectual abilities, but he also disparaged the former president’s professional background, exclaiming, “Oh my god, he’s a real estate developer!”
Bolton, now a vocal critic of President Trump, served as the former president’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. Mr. Bolton previously served as the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, where he developed a reputation as a foreign policy hawk.
Bolton’s comments to Le Figaro suggesting that Trump is not smart enough to be a dictator will do little to allay fears on the political left, both domestically and internationally, about Trump’s second term as president. Almost certainly.
After all, Trump has signaled that he intends to become a dictator if re-elected, even if only on his first day in office.
Meanwhile, incumbent Joe Biden, seeking a second term in the White House, warned that Trump and his allies, the only remaining contender for the Republican nomination, are “determined to destroy American democracy.” did. President Trump recently added fuel to the debate by hosting Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, mansion.
Additionally, President Trump is known for lavishing praise on leaders seen as opposed to America’s democratic ideals and foreign policy interests, such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and China’s Xi Jinping. .
Still, Bolton said Trump, who is grappling with more than 80 criminal charges and millions of dollars in civil penalties, lacks the kind of coherent political philosophy an effective dictator looks for. insisted. He also said President Trump doesn’t like to “engage in policy analysis and decision-making in the way we typically use those terms.”
Bolton said of Trump: “It’s all episodic, it’s anecdotal, it’s transactional. And it all comes down to the question of how this benefits Donald Trump.”
Such disdain from Bolton, who urged President Trump to withdraw from the deal with Iran aimed at discouraging nuclear weapons development, is not new. In a new preface to his book for the Trump presidency, “The Room Where It Happened,” Bolton writes that Trump will punish personal enemies and placate America’s adversaries Russia and China. I warned him that he was only thinking about it.
“Trump is unfit to be president,” Bolton wrote. And while Bolton may not think Trump can promote a dictatorship, he warns: “If the first four years were bad, the next four years are going to be even worse.”
Mr. Trump appears to be leaning toward this prediction. He sowed alarm at a campaign rally in early March, musing about how foreign car production would affect the U.S. auto industry. “If I don’t get elected, it will be a disaster for the whole thing. Please be minimal. It will be a bloodbath for the country.”
His use of the word “bloodshed” was reminiscent of provocative language used previously by President Trump, including describing immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our nation.”
“The communists, the Marxists, the fascists, the far-left thugs who live like vermin within our country as they lie, steal and cheat in elections,” he said at a rally in New Hampshire last year. I want to eradicate it,” he said.
After the remarks, Biden accused President Trump of exploiting the world’s “pests,” saying that Trump He said the language “reflects language heard in Nazi Germany.”
In an interview with Le Figaro, Bolton said it was “very likely” that Trump would act on his threat to withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance if re-elected. President Trump has repeatedly threatened in recent months to withhold protection from countries he believes are not paying enough to maintain the security alliance, and the alliance’s European members have mocked the US’s “stupidity.” “There is,” he claimed.
“Trump comes up with an idea, keeps coming back to it, then gets distracted and forgets it, but eventually comes back to it and acts on it,” Bolton warned. “That’s why leaving NATO is a real possibility. Many people think it’s just a negotiating tool, but I don’t think so.”
