John Bolton - Foreign leaders view Trump ‘laughing fool’

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Former National Security Adviser John Bolton laid into former President Donald Trump on "CNN This Morning" Tuesday in discussion with Kaitlan Collins.

The discussion centered largely on comments Trump made about foreign policy and the Russian invasion of Ukraine during CNN's controversial St. Anselm College town hall last Wednesday, which Collins moderated.

"You once said that he barely knew where Ukraine was," said Collins. "And his notion that — one thing he repeated that night as well is he said, if he was in office, that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine."

"Yeah," said Bolton. "Trump has this impression that foreign leaders, especially adversaries, hold him in high regard, that he's got a good relationship with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un. I believe they think he's a laughing fool. And the idea that somehow his presence in office would have deterred Putin is flatly wrong. If anything, if Trump had won a second term and done what I think he intended to do, which is get out of NATO, Putin would have just waited and let him do it, and even the weakening of NATO would have made it a lot easier for the Russians to have prevailed."

"Another comment Trump made speaking of the rule of law last Wednesday night is, he left the door open to pardoning people who were charged with assaulting cops on January 6th, the Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy," said Collins. "What did you make of him saying that he would consider pardoning most of them?"

"I think it's virtually treasonous for the president to say he would pardon people who were trying to disrupt the work of Congress," said Bolton. "It's another example why he's not fit to be president. If anybody wants to know what a Trump administration would look like, if he's pardoning the people who rioted on January 6th, that's all you need to know."

John Bolton is plenty despicable himself, but I don't doubt his assessments on this topic are correct.