Bolton rips Trump in ABC interview: 'I don't think he's fit for office'

published 18 June 2020

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton is continuing his brutal assessment of his former boss, this time in an ABC interview.

Bolton sat down with ABC's Martha Raddatz for an interview set to air Sunday ahead of the release of his new book, and the network is now dropping the first clips, showing Bolton tearing into Trump as someone not fit to be president.

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Elaborating on that last point, Bolton reiterates a claim from his book that Trump would frequently only consider the way decisions would help his re-election, such as obsessing over "the press reaction" to a photo-op with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and not thinking about "what such meetings did for the bargaining position of the United States." In another clip, Bolton tells ABC that Russian President Vladimir Putin "thinks he can play [Trump] like a fiddle" and isn't "worried about Donald Trump" because he "sees that he's not faced with a serious adversary here."

Bolton is set to release his tell-all book The Room Where It Happened next week, and reports emerged on Wednesday revealing numerous details from it, including the claim that Trump begged for Chinese President Xi Jinping's help in winning re-election. In a late-night tweet, Trump blasted Bolton as a "wacko" and a "dope" whose book is "made up of lies & fake stories," despite his administration also saying it contains classified information. Brendan Morrow

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.

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