NEW YORK: Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton says his former boss, former President Donald Trump “doesn’t have the brains” to be a dictator, as questions arise about what a second Trump term would look like.
Conservative French newspaper Le Figaro asked Bolton if Trump had dictatorial tendencies in an interview published earlier this week. “He hasn’t got the brains! He’s a property developer for God’s sake!” Bolton replied. Now a vocal critic of Trump, Bolton served as the former president’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019.
Bolton had previously served as US ambassador to the UN during George W Bush’s presidency, developing a reputation as a foreign policy hawk. Trump, the lone remaining contender for the Republican presidential nomination, is set to face President Joe Biden in the November presidential elections.
According to press reports, Trump met with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban earlier this month, marking his embrace of autocratic leaders who are part of pushing back on democratic norms. He has offered praise for several foreign leaders of nations the U.S. views as adversaries.
The former president said he has received “beautiful letters” from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “very good person.” In the past, Trump has claimed he would not be a dictator if he were reelected, “except for day one.” In the interview, Bolton argued that “it is very likely that Trump will leave NATO if he is reelected.” Trump has long criticized NATO members for failing to spend 2 percent of their GDP and threatened to leave the organization while in office.
After telling Putin he could do what he pleases for delinquent NATO members, Trump has doubled down on his claims. “Trump, when he has an idea, comes back to it again and again, then gets distracted, forgets, but eventually comes back to it and acts on it.
That’s why leaving NATO is a real possibility. A lot of people think it’s just a negotiating tool, but I don’t think so,” Bolton said in the interview, translated by The Telegraph.
