President Donald Trump continues to face a substantial number of individuals who’ve left his administration and turned around to warn the nation and world about what they see as the dangers and unfitness for office of the current president. In a new memoir that the Trump administration filed a lawsuit to try and block, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton lays out some of the incompetence and chaos of the Trump White House, helping reveal just how self-obsessed that the president really is behind the scenes. During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press this weekend, Bolton sounded an alarm about the potential for a second term of Trump’s presidency, arguing that Trump could inflict devastating damage on the country if granted four more years to run amok.
Bolton told host Chuck Todd:
‘I think damage has been done in the first term, I lay it out in the book as I see it, but I believe America can recover from one term of Donald Trump. I believe that very, very strongly. I’m more worried about a second term, and it’s not just decisions in the national security space. I’m worried about the corruption of the civil discourse in this country by a president who says the sorts of things that you quoted at the outset of our discussion. I think it degrades the body politic. There are plenty of other people doing the same thing — don’t get me wrong. But I just think it’s unpresidential to behave that way, and that will have serious consequences.’
WATCH: Fmr. National Security Adviser John Bolton says "America can recover from one term of Donald Trump" but he is more worried about a "second term." #MTP #IfItsSunday@AmbJohnBolton: "I am worried about the corruption of the civil discourse in this country." pic.twitter.com/UXBxseI5Iu
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 28, 2020
Many voters seem to agree with Bolton. After all, although Bolton himself has indicated he’ll be writing someone in rather than voting for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, the former VP leads Trump in many polls on the national level and in individual swing states.
During his NBC appearance, Bolton also discussed the recent report from The New York Times claiming that Russian authorities have been offering bounties to Afghan troops in exchange for targeting coalition forces, including Americans. The Trump administration has claimed the president was never briefed about the situation.
Bolton said:
‘I’ve never recalled a circumstance where the president himself goes out of his way to say he wasn’t briefed on something… The key point is: if there’s any accuracy to it, if the Russians have actually been paying to see Americans killed, that is a very very serious matter.’
He added:
‘I think it’s just important to understand there needs to be a filter for any president — maybe particularly for this president. So, there’s obviously more to this story, but it is pretty remarkable the president’s going out of his way to say he hasn’t heard anything about it. One asks: why would he do something like that? And I think the answer may be precisely because active Russian aggression like that against American service members is a very, very serious matter, and nothing’s been done about it, if it’s true, for these past four or five months.’
Watch below:
WATCH: Fmr. National Security Adviser John Bolton tells Chuck Todd "active Russian aggression … against American service members is a very serious matter." @AmbJohnBolton: “It’s pretty remarkable the president’s going out of his way to say he hasn’t heard anything about it.” pic.twitter.com/7741BVFfzR
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 28, 2020
