President Donald Trump tore into his former national security adviser John Bolton on Wednesday ahead of the launch of Bolton’s upcoming “nasty & untrue” book about his time in the White House, “The Room Where It Happened.”
Trump seemed to question the wisdom of hiring Bolton at all, and accused Bolton of numerous “mistakes of judgement” before he was fired last summer.
“For a guy who couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, ‘begged’ me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying ‘Don’t do it, sir’” takes the job, mistakenly says ‘Libyan Model’ on T.V., ” Trump began in a series of tweets.
He continued, “and….many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?”
Bolton suggested in April 2018 that the United States might follow the “Libya model” in dealing with North Korea. He was criticized for the comment because Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi agreed to halt his nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief years prior. Eventually, Gadhafi was overthrown and killed by rebels backed by Washington, according to CNN.
Experts say North Korea often references Gadhafi’s story to demonstrate that only nuclear weapons can deter the United States in a meaningful way and ensure the survival of Kim Jong-Un’s regime.
Trump added a third tweet: “Why didn’t John Bolton complain about this ‘nonsense’ a long time ago, when he was very publicly terminated. He said, not that it matters, NOTHING!”
In November 2019, the former ambassador to the United Nations tweeted for the first time since leaving his position in September, promising his 783,000 followers “the backstory.”
At the time, he wrote, “Re: speaking up — since resigning as National Security Advisor, the @WhiteHouse refused to return access to my personal Twitter account. Out of fear of what I may say? To those who speculated I went into hiding, I’m sorry to disappoint!”