Bolton Says Trump’s Desire to Defend China Explains ‘Failure’ of Coronavirus Response
Former White House national security adviser John Bolton argued that President Donald Trump’s “failure” to manage the start of the coronavirus crisis was the result of his interest in maintaining a positive relationship with China.
In a wide-ranging interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Bolton was asked about the controversial shake-up in the National Security Council that disbanded an office dedicated to pandemic response.
Bolton was specifically asked a quote from his memoir regarding the NSC: “The internal NSC structure was no more than the quiver of a butterfly’s wings in the tsunami of Trump’s chaos.”
Bolton’s answer:
Well, it would certainly not be far from the truth. I mean, specifically in the case of coronavirus, and I do think this is important, whether it’s in the context of the 2020 election or how somebody runs the presidency, in January and really even beyond that, Trump simply did not want to hear anything bad about the situation in China. He didn’t want anything that could be seen as critical of Xi Jinping. He didn’t want to hear anything about the extent of the virus or whether the Chinese had lied about its effects or covered up the spread of the disease.
Bolton continued to say Trump “didn’t want to hear anything about negative effects on the Chinese economy that could undermine the trade negotiations,” nor that it could pose a problem for the U.S. economy:
[Trump] did not want to hear anything that could suggest trouble for the American economy, which he saw as his, but not unrealistically, he saw as his ticket to reelection. And that empty chair in the Oval Office is one of the things I think that explains the early failure to respond adequately.
In previews of Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, he claimed that he saw Trump ask Xi to buy more American agricultural products so Trump could secure the votes of U.S. farmers. Bolton also said Trump was willing to halt criminal investigations and conduct diplomacy with China and other countries “to, in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked.”
