MSNBC Anchor Shades Guest John Bolton By Reminding Viewers ‘He Refused to Testify’ at Trump’s Impeachment

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell introduced her guest by giving her viewers a friendly reminder that despite his recent criticism of former President Donald Trump, former National Security Advisor John Bolton refused to testify against him during his first impeachment trial.

After the commercial break, Mitchell began her introduction of Bolton by including some of the harshest criticisms against Trump that the ex-aide has issued — punctuating it with the impeachment note:

John Bolton, has issued a withering criticism of his former boss, Donald Trump, in the foreword to the paperback edition of his White House memoir, The Room Where It Happened, that, “a mountain of facts demonstrates that Trump is unfit to be president,” he writes. He warns that as president, Mr. Trump could dismiss two federal cases brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith, for starters. And on foreign policy, Bolton writes that “it’s a close contest between [Vladimir] Putin and Xi Jinping, who would be happiest to see Trump back in office.”

We should note that Bolton refused to testify, though, during Donald Trump’s first impeachment over Ukraine. Ambassador John Bolton joins me now.

Then the camera cut to Bolton, who seemed fine with it. The impeachment was not discussed during their conversation, though he does discuss Trump’s handling of security assistance for Ukraine in his book, which was originally published in 2020. From The Washington Post:

Bolton asserts that the delay in releasing $400 million in security assistance for Ukraine last summer was indeed an attempt by the president to get the foreign country to provide damaging material about former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former vice president Joe Biden.

The former national security adviser cites personal conversations in which he describes a quid pro quo that Trump long denied, including an August meeting in which Bolton alleges that Trump made the bargain explicit.

“He said he wasn’t in favor of sending them anything until all Russia-investigation material related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over,” Bolton writes.

Trump was impeached on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice. He was acquitted by the Republican-led Senate.

Watch the video above via MSNBC.