Trump Told Aides He Wanted Covid to Kill John Bolton: New Book

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Former President Donald Trump hoped that the coronavirus pandemic would kill his former national security adviser, John Bolton, according to a new book about his pandemic response.

Axios has published a report on an excerpt of Nightmare Scenario, the upcoming book from Washington Post correspondents Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta. The book drew interest earlier this week for reporting Trump wanted to quarantine Covid-infected Americans in Guantanamo Bay. Now, a newly previewed portion says, “Trump had tried to joke about the virus for months, sometimes even mocking people who had become ill.”

The anecdote chronicled by Axios asserts that months before Trump contracted Covid himself, he was in a meeting where National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow “stifled a cough [and] the room had frozen.”

“Trump had waved his hands in front of his face, as if to jokingly ward off any flying virus particles, and then cracked a smile,” Axios reports. “‘I was just kidding,’ he’d said. ‘Larry will never get Covid. He will defeat it with his optimism…John Bolton…Hopefully Covid takes out John.'”

Sources for Abutaleb and Paletta told them they believed Trump was being serious when he wished death upon Bolton. When reached for comment, Bolton told Axios “Fooled me — I thought he was relying on his lawyers.”

Trump has expressed animus towards Bolton ever since the latter released The Room Where It Happened — a memoir of Bolton’s time with the former president’s administration. The book tore into Trump’s handling of foreign policy, provided numerous examples of his blundering on the world stage, and claimed that Trump’s sole interest in foreign policy was in securing his own re-election.