Trump’s Former National Security Adviser Says ‘International Crisis’ Is ‘Much More Likely’ With Him Back
President-elect Donald Trump’s onetime national security adviser warns that the return of his former boss to the White House will significantly increase the risk of “an international crisis.”
John Bolton—who served as Trump’s national security adviser for 17 months from April 2018 to September 2019—dismissed the president-elect’s claims that he is uniquely positioned to resolve international conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza in an interview with The Guardian. He called it “typical Trump: it’s all braggadocio.”
On the contrary, Bolton warned that Trump is poised to take office in a “more dangerous” world than when he was first elected, adding that he worried about the instability of Trump’s decision-making, which he likened to “a series of neuron flashes.”
Bolton, 76, noted that the re-elected and emboldened Trump could be even more erratic the second time around. “He now feels more confident in his judgment having been re-elected, which will make it even harder to impose any kind of intellectual decision-making discipline,” he told the U.K. newspaper.
“The risk of an international crisis of the 19th-century variety is much more likely in a second Trump term,” Bolton said. “Given Trump’s inability to focus on coherent decision-making, I’m very worried about how that might look.”
Even before taking office, Trump has begun making erratic demands of foreign countries, taking even some of his advisers by surprise. He threatened Canada and Mexico with 25 percent tariffs—while humorously musing about turning the former into the 51st state—and has suggested the U.S. take over Greenland and the Panama Canal.
Bolton also suggested Trump is jealous of authoritarians Vladimir Putin of Russia and Viktor Orbán of Hungary, who Bolton said “don’t have pesky independent legislatures and judiciaries and they do big guy things that Trump can’t do and he just wishes he could do.”
Bolton said he believes Trump considers his relationship with Putin to be a friendship, but says Putin believes “Trump’s an easy mark.”
Bolton was reportedly pushed out of Trump’s first administration at Tucker Carlson’s urging. As a senior diplomat in former President George W. Bush’s administration, he was a staunch advocate for the Iraq War, which he continues to defend.
Bolton’s own former colleagues alleged he distorted intelligence to fit his own biases, including making embellished and unsubstantiated claims that Cuba was trying to develop biological weapons. Trump once described himself as “the one that tempers” Bolton, rather than the other way around.
