Ex-Trump National Security Advisor Warns: World Dictators Think He’s a ‘Laughing Fool’ and Are ‘Fully Prepared to Take Advantage’
Former President Donald Trump likes to brag about his relationships with some of the world’s most authoritarian leaders — but one of his former staffers said those leaders didn’t think too highly of Trump.
During an appearance on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday, John Bolton, who served as Trump’s National Security Advisor from 2018 to 2019, told anchor Kaitlan Collins that while his former boss gloats about his personal relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, “they think he’s a laughing fool and they’re fully prepared to take advantage of him” if he was elected to a second term.
He started by saying that Trump doesn’t even have the temperament to focus on international affairs or national security and gave a number of reasons:
I don’t think Trump is capable of making the decisions grounded in national security. His attention span is short. He doesn’t know much about world history or world affairs. He actually doesn’t think they matter very much. He thinks his personal relationships with foreign leaders, especially the authoritarian ones, are all that matter. And while personal relations in international affairs are important, when you get in a situation like we see in the Middle East now, they’re not significant.
So faced with these decisions, Trump could go one way in the morning, a different way in the afternoon. He doesn’t have the ability to stay consistent for long periods of time, except on one thing, which is how he looks, in the press and in public attention. And that is very worrying. When you’re in a crisis, you need a president who is resolute, who can keep his eyes on the prize, and worry about our national security, not his own image.
Collins asked about what that meant for Trump’s rapport with the aforementioned foreign leaders:
Collins: So basically, you’re saying that you think that he thinks these relationships that he has with Putin or with Xi Jinping or with Kim Jong Un, that they would save him when it comes to the actual policy and the dynamic of those relationships, and that you’re arguing it won’t, it doesn’t do anything for that.
Bolton: Well, I think, the hard men of history like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, understand what their job is for their respective country. I don’t think Trump understands what the job of the presidency is for ours.
And I will say, having been in the room with him, in meeting those people, having listened in on his phone conversations, I don’t think they are really friendly with Donald Trump. I think they think, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and others, they think he’s a laughing fool and they’re fully prepared to take advantage of him. Trump’s self-absorption makes it impossible for him to understand that.
Collins: So you think they’d be happy if he returned to the Oval Office?
Bolton: Yeah, I think they believe he’s an easy mark.
Watch the video above via CNN.
