John Bolton Snickers on CNN at Trump Supporters Who Voted for ‘No New Wars’ Amid Iran Strikes

President Donald Trump and his former National Security Advisor John Bolton found themselves in the rare position on Saturday of actually agreeing with each other.

Bolton joined CNN’s Kaitlan Collins where he offered up a chuckle and a lesson to MAGA voters who supported Trump in the hopes he’d push for “no new wars.” Trump announced earlier on Saturday that the U.S. and Israel were conducting strikes against Iran, targeting military bases and top leaders. Both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have pushed the Iranian people to overthrow their theocratic and civil rights-violating regime.

Bolton worked under Trump during his first term as National Security advisor, but the relationship soured with Bolton publicly criticizing Trump’s lack of experience while Trump pushed back on Bolton’s hawkish foreign policy.

Striking Iran, however, is something Bolton has long been behind.

On Saturday, Collins asked Bolton if he had a message for MAGA voters who backed Trump’s foreign policy message in past campaigns of avoiding wars and regime change in the Middle East.

Bolton chuckled to himself and told the voters they made the “mistake” of thinking Trump has any sort of foundational philosophy at all.

He said:

Well, I think they made the mistake of believing that Donald Trump had a consistent philosophy, national security strategy and policy, which he doesn’t. My only regret is that I wasn’t persuasive enough in the first term to get to this point.

Bolton backs a regime change plan, arguing Trump’s team needs to look for “weak leaks” in the existing leadership structure to “pull the regime apart from the top” and convert significant resources.

Early reports have suggested that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the strikes. Trump said he believes the reports are “correct,” but they have yet to be confirmed. Iran has insisted that all high-level government leadership survived the strikes.

Watch above via CNN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!