John Bolton Blames Trump for Afghanistan: ‘Negotiators Delegitimized the Afghan Government’

Former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton blamed his former boss on Friday for the crisis in Afghanistan.

Speaking in an evening interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Bolton said he believed President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump “actually see the exactly same way” insofar as they both wanted “to get out” of Afghanistan. “Now there’s finger pointing, Biden saying we’re stuck with the Trump deal, Trump saying well, they could have done it differently,” Bolton said.

“Look, the basic mistake that’s playing out here is that Trump negotiated this deal only with the Taliban,” he added. “There are a lot of mistakes in the deal itself. But the fundamental problem of dealing with this terrorist organization is that the Trump negotiators delegitimized the Afghan government. The government we set up. The government with which all the many flaws had at least some democratic legitimacy, of which Taliban had none.”

Biden has repeatedly blamed Trump since Kabul fell to the Taliban on August 15 for negotiating the deal for the United States to leave Afghanistan. Trump fired back on Thursday, saying in an interview that Biden had “botched the plan” by removing military assets before the civilians had been evacuated.

Bolton played a role in the early years of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, serving as an under secretary of state for President George W. Bush from 2001-2005. He also served as Trump’s national security adviser from 2018-2019 before falling out of the president’s favor due to his hawkish approach to foreign policy.

“By de-recognizing the government in effect, we shattered the morale of the Afghan army,” Bolton said in Friday’s interview. “The army is saying well, if the Americans won’t even protect that government, why are we going to end up protecting it? That’s why honestly, nobody should have been surprised that the army collapsed so quickly when Biden announced the final withdrawal.”

Watch above via CNN.