Bolton: President Trump Not ‘Fit For Office’, More Concerned For Reelection

Former national security adviser John Bolton told ABC News that he did not believe President Donald Trump was “fit for office” or had the “competence to carry out the job.”

Bolton’s comments come as Trump filed an aggressive last-minute attempt to prevent the release of Bolton’s scathing memoir detailing Trump’s actions in office.

In both the interview and the book, Bolton claimed that Trump was only concerned about his reelection and appeared not to care about the long-term effects of his decisions.

“There really isn't any guiding principle that I was able to discern other than what's good for Donald Trump's reelection,” Bolton said.

In his memoir, Bolton criticized Trump’s approach to the presidency in contrast to the administrations of the three previous Republican presidents under whom Bolton served.

“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” he wrote.

He also said Trump set aside the United States' bargaining point during his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and preferred to focus on media reaction to the event.

“There was considerable emphasis on the photo opportunity and the press reaction to it and little or no focus on what such meetings did for the bargaining position of the United States,” Bolton said.

On Wednesday night (June 17), the Justice Department sued to block the publication of Bolton’s memoir after excerpts were printed by several news organizations. The book is scheduled for release on June 26.

Trump has called Bolton a “wacko” whose book was “made up of lies and fake stories” in a tweet.

“A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war. Never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped. What a dope!” Trump tweeted.

“The Room Where It Happened” describes Bolton’s time in President Trump’s inner circle with several bombshell revelations, including accusations of abuse of power.

In the book, Bolton alleged that Trump had suspended millions of dollars in security aid to Ukraine until the country publicly announced investigations into presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and other Democrats. Trump was impeached in December 2019 over this allegation.

The former national security adviser also said that he was prepared to testify during the impeachment trial in the Senate but Senate Republicans blocked a subpoena for his testimony. He also said he believed House Democrats should have expanded the scope of its impeachment investigations.

Bolton also alleged that Trump offered Chinese president Xi Jinping a favor over the conviction of a Chinese telecommunications company over evading sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser for 17 months, during which time he allegedly had multiple disagreements with the president over his handling of foreign issues, in particular with North Korea. Bolton said he resigned but Trump has countered that he fired Bolton first.