If recently fired national security adviser John Bolton does indeed decide to write a book about his time in the Trump administration, it promises to be an absolute page-turner based on what he had to say Wednesday at a private lunch, Politico notes:
(Bolton) harshly criticized Trump’s foreign policy on Wednesday at a private lunch, saying that inviting the Taliban to Camp David sent a “terrible signal” and that it was “disrespectful” to the victims of 9/11 because the Taliban had harbored al Qaeda.
Bolton also said that any negotiations with North Korea and Iran were “doomed to failure,” according to two attendees.
And Bolton, according to attendees, was just getting warmed up, letting loose on Trump’s so-called foreign policy when it comes to just about every international challenge facing the United States, including:
- “On Afghanistan, another frequent subject of disagreement with the president, Bolton said that the U.S. should not have pursued a peace deal with the Taliban.”
- “On Venezuela, a focus of his short White House tenure, Bolton claimed there were 20,000 to 25,000 Cuban troops in the South American country. The day they left, he predicted, the Nicholas Maduro regime would fall by midnight.”
- “He also said that if British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn were to become prime minister, it would be ‘fatal to the special relationship’ between the U.S. and Britain.”
The guests at the private luncheon, which was held at Le Bernardin in Manhattan, included attorney Alan Dershowitz, former attorney general Michael Mukasey, Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, former Fox News host John Stossel, former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey and New York billionaire John Catsimadis, according to Politico.
And Bolton also took personal shots at Trump, though he never called the president by name:
“He ripped Trump, without using his name, several times,” said one attendee. Bolton didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bolton also said more than once that Trump’s failure to respond to the Iranian attack on an American drone earlier this summer set the stage for the Islamic Republic’s aggression in recent months.
When asked about Bolton’s remarks, the president, who was visiting a section of the U.S.-Mexico in San Diego, told reporters:
“Well, I was critical of John Bolton for getting us involved with a lot of other people in the Middle East. We’ve spent $7.5 trillion in the Middle East and you ought to ask a lot of people about that.
“John was not able to work with anybody, and a lot of people disagreed with his ideas. A lot of people were very critical that I brought him on in the first place because of the fact that he was so In favor of going into the Middle East, and he got stuck in quicksand and we became policemen for the Middle East. It’s ridiculous.“
John Bolton cannot possibly write that book he’s said to be shopping around to publishers soon enough.
Featured Image Via the BBC
