Donald Trump, the former president, likes to boast about his connections to some of the most autocratic people on the planet, but according to a former staff member, those leaders weren’t very fond of Trump.
John Bolton, who was Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019, said that although his former boss boasts about his personal connections to Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean President Kim Jong Un, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, “they think he’s a laughing fool and they’re fully prepared to take advantage of him” if he were elected to a second term. Bolton made this claim during an appearance on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday.
He started by saying that Trump doesn’t even have the temperament to focus on international affairs or national security and gave a number of reasons:
I don’t think Trump is capable of making the decisions grounded in national security. His attention span is short. He doesn’t know much about world history or world affairs. He actually doesn’t think they matter very much. He thinks his personal relationships with foreign leaders, especially the authoritarian ones, are all that matter. And while personal relations in international affairs are important, when you get in a situation like we see in the Middle East now, they’re not significant.
So faced with these decisions, Trump could go one way in the morning, a different way in the afternoon. He doesn’t have the ability to stay consistent for long periods of time, except on one thing, which is how he looks, in the press and in public attention. And that is very worrying. When you’re in a crisis, you need a president who is resolute, who can keep his eyes on the prize, and worry about our national security, not his own image.
Collins asked about what that meant for Trump’s rapport with the aforementioned foreign leaders:
Collins: So basically, you’re saying that you think that he thinks these relationships that he has with Putin or with Xi Jinping or with Kim Jong Un, that they would save him when it comes to the actual policy and the dynamic of those relationships, and that you’re arguing it won’t, it doesn’t do anything for that.
Bolton: Well, I think, the hard men of history like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, understand what their job is for their respective country. I don’t think Trump understands what the job of the presidency is for ours.
And I will say, having been in the room with him, in meeting those people, having listened in on his phone conversations, I don’t think they are really friendly with Donald Trump. I think they think, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and others, they think he’s a laughing fool and they’re fully prepared to take advantage of him. Trump’s self-absorption makes it impossible for him to understand that.
Collins: So you think they’d be happy if he returned to the Oval Office?
Bolton: Yeah, I think they believe he’s an easy mark.
