06/19/2020 - 13:25
- Clarín.com
- World
They called him a "traitor". Donald Trump himself nicknamed him "nutty," "incompetent," and "boring old man," and accused him of writing a "compilation of lies." We are talking about John Bolton , the former Trump National Security adviser who left the White House with a bunch of annotations that he now captured in a book, in the most recent headache for the president among a long list of illnesses.
The book "The Room Where It Happened" reveals the White House's most secret, juicy, and outrageous kitchen, plus the President's outbursts and his inability to rule. This angered several Democrats for considering that Bolton is late with confessions. Many believed that the former Trump adviser should have spoken during the impeachment process . And not now.
The book, which the White House desperately seeks to prevent from going on sale at the end of the month, portrays a president ignorant of basic geopolitical events and whose decisions were frequently driven by a desire for reelection.
Despite efforts by the White House to tackle publication of the book, US media have obtained advance copies and have begun publishing details of it. These are some of the pearls to know.
1. Trump wanted help from China to win reelection ...
In the book, Bolton describes a meeting between President Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a G20 meeting in Japan last year.
Trump "surprisingly led the conversation to the next US presidential election (in 2020), alluding to China's economic capacity and pleading with Xi to make sure he wins," Bolton writes.
"He emphasized the importance of farmers and the increase in Chinese purchases of soy and wheat in the electoral result."
Agriculture is one of the leading industries in the Midwestern states of the United States that helped propel Trump to victory in the 2016 election.
2. ... and said that building internment camps was "the right thing"
China's treatment of Uighurs and other ethical minorities has sparked international condemnation, and about a million people are believed to have been detained in camps in the Xinjiang region.
On Wednesday, President Trump authorized sanctions against Chinese officials involved in mass incarcerations, prompting an angry response from China.
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton listens to Donald Trump in an April 2018 picture. / Reuters
But in Bolton's book, when Xi defended the construction of the fields, the President of the United States suggested that he would approve of China's actions.
"According to our interpreter," Bolton wrote, "Trump said Xi should continue with the construction of the camps, which Trump thought was exactly what he should do ."
3. Trump offered "personal favors to dictators"
The Chinese leader is not the only authoritarian leader that Bolton accuses the president of pleasing.
Trump was willing to intervene in criminal investigations "to, in fact, give personal favors to dictators he liked," Bolton wrote.
According to the book, Trump offered help to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2018 in a U.S. investigation into a Turkish company for possible violations of Iranian sanctions.
The President of the United States is said to have agreed to "take care of things" and that the prosecutors involved were "Obama's people."
4. Democrats should have gone further with impeachment efforts
In the book, Bolton supports Democrats' allegations that President Trump wanted to withhold military aid to Ukraine to pressure his government to investigate his rival Joe Biden. The claim sparked impeachment efforts against Trump.
However, Bolton criticizes Democrats in his book, saying they committed "negligence of impeachment" simply by focusing on Ukraine. He argues that if they had expanded the investigation, more Americans would have been persuaded that President Trump had committed enough "crimes and misdemeanors" to be removed.
Bolton declined to testify in the process when he was in the House of Representatives late last year, then Republicans barred him from appearing in the Senate.
5. Trump suggested that he wanted to serve more than two terms
On President Trump's talks with Xi Jinping. Bolton says Trump told the Chinese leader that the Americans were interested in him making the constitutional changes necessary to serve more than two terms.
"The highlight came when Xi said he wanted to work with Trump for six more years, and Trump replied that people said the two-term constitutional limit for presidents should be repealed for him," he wrote in an excerpt published by The Wall Street. Journal.
"Xi said the United States had too many elections, because it did not want to walk away from Trump, who nodded approvingly."
6. Trump did not know that the United Kingdom was a nuclear power ...
Britain was the third country after the United States and the Soviet Union to test an atomic device, in 1952. But the fact that the United Kingdom is part of the small club of states with nuclear weapons seems to have been news for President Trump.
An excerpt speaks of a 2018 meeting with then-UK Prime Minister Theresa May, in which an official referred to Britain as a nuclear power.
Trump is said to have replied, "Oh, are they a nuclear power?" The comment, Bolton said, "was not a joke."
7. ... or if Finland were part of Russia
Bolton says there are other gaps in President Trump's knowledge.
Before a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, the Finnish capital, Trump asked if Finland was "a kind of satellite of Russia."
According to Bolton, the intelligence briefings were "not terribly useful," since during most of them "he spoke more broadly than informants, often on matters completely unrelated to the issues at hand."
8. I was very close to leaving NATO
President Trump has been a persistent critic of the NATO military bloc and has called on other members to increase their spending.
Despite this, the United States remains a member, but Bolton says that at a 2018 NATO summit, Trump had decided to resign.
"We are going to go out and we are not going to defend those who did not pay," the president said, according to Bolton.
9. Invading Venezuela would be "cool"
One of the main foreign policy headaches for the Trump administration has been Venezuela, with the United States as a staunch opponent of Nicolás Maduro.
In discussions on the matter, Trump said it would be "great" (said cool, in English) invade Venezuela and the South American nation was "really part of the United States."
Bolton writes that in a May 2019 phone call, Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a "brilliant Soviet-style propaganda display" by comparing Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, which "largely persuaded Trump."
Putin's goal was to defend his ally, President Maduro, Bolton writes. In 2018, Trump called Maduro a dictator and imposed sanctions on him, but the Venezuelan held on to power.
In an interview with ABC News that will air in its entirety this Sunday, Bolton says of Trump: "I think Putin believes he can handle it like a violin."
10. Even the allies ridiculed him
Bolton's book contains several examples of White House officials who mock Trump.
It describes a dysfunctional White House, where meetings resemble "food fights" rather than considering policymaking efforts.
When he arrived at the White House, then-Cabinet Chief John Kelly warned him that "this is a bad place to work , as you will discover."
Even considered loyal Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is said to have written a note describing the president as "full of shit."
Pompeo responded this Friday by saying that Bolton is a "traitor."
