Trump ‘unfit to lead’

President under fire from all sides as new book makes waves

PRESIDENT Donald Trump has come under attack from both sides of the US political spectrum as liberal Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and former White House aide and conservative hawk John Bolton declared him unfit to lead the country.

“President Trump is clearly ethically unfit and intellectually unprepared to be the president of the United States,” Ms

Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, told a news briefing on Thursday.

In a new book, Mr Bolton, Mr Trump’s former national security adviser, has accused the Republican president of sweeping misdeeds, including explicitly seeking Chinese President Xi Jinping’s aid to win re-election in November.

“I don’t think he’s fit for office,” Mr Bolton told ABC

News. “There really isn’t any guiding principle that I was able to discern other than what’s good for Donald Trump’s re-election.”

Ms Pelosi said she was consulting with her fellow Democrats on whether to subpoena Mr Bolton about the allegations in the book, which has not yet been distributed.

If Mr Bolton testifies before Congress, it could revive the issue of Mr Trump’s competence as he faces a stiff challenge ahead of the November 3 election from Joe Biden, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, and fends off criticism over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and protests over racial injustice.

Mr Bolton refused to testify in the House’s impeachment probe last year and threatened to sue if subpoenaed.

He offered to testify in the subsequent trial in the Senate, but the Republican-controlled chamber did not take him up on the offer.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out at Mr Bolton, declaring him a “traitor”.

The US Justice Department is trying to block the release of the book, The Room Where It Happened, on the grounds it contains classified information.