Former Trump NatSec Advisor Says President Probably in ‘Panic Mode’ After Two U.S. Jets Shot Down

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton said President Donald Trump is “probably back in a panic mode” after Iran shot down two U.S. military planes on Friday.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard shot down an F-15 fighter jet, whose two-person crew ejected. One aviator was rescued, but the other is still missing in action somewhere in Iran, which also shot down an A-10 Warthog, whose lone pilot was rescued.

The shootdowns come after Trump repeatedly boasted of having air supremacy. On multiple occasions in recent weeks, he had even claimed Iran was not even firing on U.S. aircraft.

“Their anti-aircraft equipment is gone. We’re flying wherever we want. We have nobody even shooting at us,” the president said on March 19. His remarks came hours after a U.S. F-35 fighter jet was struck by Iranian fire. The pilot involved in that incident managed to make an emergency landing outside Iran.

Bolton appeared on Friday’s episode of The Source on CNN, where Kaitlan Collins asked, “Does it undermine what the White House has been saying about how degraded Iran’s capability is? I mean, the president said this week that Iran had no anti-aircraft equipment, that their radar was 100% annihilated.”

“Sure, it absolutely degrades White House credibility,” said Bolton, who served in the first Trump administration. “And that’s a self-inflicted wound by the White House, not by the Iranians. If you overstate what you’ve accomplished and evidence comes that shows that you’ve overstated, you look foolish.”

Collins noted that Trump had not spoken about the shootdowns on Friday.

“Why do you think the president hasn’t spoken about this on camera today?” she asked. “Does that stand out to you at all?”

Bolton responded:

Uh, no. It sounds to me like he’s probably back in a panic mode, wishing he could find a way to declare victory and get out of this war, regardless of whether or not he opens the Strait of Hormuz before he does it. I think that’s a mistake, too. I think if there had been an effective decision-making process before the war started and these concerns were raised and they bothered the president, he had the option then not to initiate the attack. But apparently he was satisfied.

Now, if things are upsetting him that he either didn’t think about or didn’t pay any attention to in the run-up to the war, that’s a problem for him. And therefore it’s a problem for the country. But it was easily avoided and should have been avoided.

Watch above via CNN.

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