Sarah Huckabee Sanders calls Bolton 'drunk on power' in 1st excerpt from her book

Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is set to release a memoir of her time in the White House this fall — yet another election year book from former Trump administration officials. And with her first excerpt from Speaking for Myself released Monday to Axios, Sanders made it clear she wouldn't be taking the same approach as former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

In the brief excerpt, Sanders shares that Bolton usually traveled separately from the rest of President Trump's team, including when Trump visited London last year. Sanders, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and several other officials all took a bus together to the U.S. ambassador's residence in London, but Bolton opted for a separate motorcade.

"While en route, U.K. police directed us to pull to the side of the road because someone was coming through...we looked over to see who it was and sure enough here came Bolton and his motorcade," Sanders described. "The discussion on the bus quickly moved from casual chit chat to how arrogant and selfish Bolton could be, not just in this moment but on a regular basis." And when they all arrived at their destination, the "typically laid-back" former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney "confronted Bolton and unleashed a full Irish explosion on him," calling the adviser a "'f—— self-righteous, self-centered son of a b——,'" Sanders continues. It was all indicative of how "Bolton was a classic case of a senior White House official drunk on power, who had forgotten that nobody elected him to anything," Sanders finished.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

A longtime senior adviser to Bolton told Axios that all travel was "handled by the Secret Service." Bolton's book made a bevvy of misconduct allegations against Trump and his team, including claims that Trump called for journalists to be "executed" and encouraged Chinese President Xi Jinping to build concentration camps to hold the Uighur Muslim minority.

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.