Aides no longer ‘the very best people’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump surveyed the crowd at a raucous political rally in Nashville two years ago and pointed toward his mustachioed national security adviser, “the great John Bolton.”
“They think he’s so nasty and so tough that I have to hold him back, OK?” Trump said, paying Bolton his ultimate compliment of bareknuckle tactics to pursue an edgy political agenda.
Now, as scathing criticism of Trump has emerged from Bolton’s forthcoming memoir, the president is trying to rewrite history, describing his former aide as “incompetent,” “wacko” and “a disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war.”
“Never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped. What a dope!” Trump, who pushed Bolton out in September, tweeted Thursday.
But Bolton is hardly alone. In breaking with Trump over what Bolton portrays as concerns over the president’s competence and moral compass, Bolton joins an unprecedented group of former top-level advisers who have turned on their former boss.
The list includes John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff; James Mattis, his former defense secretary; Dan Coats, his former director of national intelligence; and Rex Tillerson, his former secretary of state.
Like Bolton, they were quickly labeled losers, liars or worse by the man who once lavishly praised their qualifications and counted them among “the very best people.”
The record of retrospective insult raises an obvious question: If they were such incompetent dolts, why did Trump hire them in the first place?
“When you worked for him, you were either ‘the best’ or ‘the worst,’ ” said Barbara Res, a senior executive for the Trump Organization in the 1980s. “If you were the worst, he could blame you or fire you. But if you were just doing a decent job, he’d say you were the best.
“He said everyone ‘The Apprentice’ had over 170.”
Res said the superlatives weren’t meant to convey reality or even to make the recipient feel valued. They were a sales technique, meant to deflect blame if things went bad or to burnish Trump’s image, depending on what was needed.
In his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” Bolton describes a similar psychology, accusing Trump of viewing and using even the most important aspects of foreign policy — negotiations with China over trade, with Ukraine over aid to fend off Russian aggression, with North Korea over nuclear disarmament, and decisions about withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Syria — as a means of improving Trump’s own political standing and reelection prospects.
“My base wants to get out,” Bolton says Trump told him in a late-night phone call in January 2019 to explain his insistence on removing U.S. troops from northern Syria, a plan Bolton opposed.
The Los Angeles Times has obtained a copy of Bolton’s book, which is scheduled for release Tuesday.
Rather than rebut Bolton’s allegations, Trump has returned to his familiar playbook of disparaging Bolton.
Trump did the same thing when Mattis labeled Trump a threat to the Constitution in a scathing essay that followed Trump’s use of federal law enforcement to clear peaceful protesters to make way for a photo op.
Trump, who used to brag about the retired Marine general’s toughness, then tweeted that Mattis was “the world’s most overrated General” and falsely claimed to have fired him although it was Mattis who resigned in December 2018. on IQs
Trump took similar 180degree turns with others.
Kelly, another former Marine general went from being “a true star of my administration” who was “respected by everybody” to a press-hungry chief of staff who “was way over his head.”
Tillerson, who led Exxon Mobil Corp. before he became Trump’s first secretary of state, went from being “brilliant” and one of “the truly great business leaders of the world” to “a man who 3550 NW 77 CT. Palmetto & 36 St., Exit West @ NW 36 St. To 79 Ave., Left to 2nd Left (NW 77 Ct.) Hours: Mon-Sat 9-6, Sun 11-5 (305) 591-4141 15761 SHERIDAN ST.
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And Jeff Sessions, the senator from Alabama who served as a top campaign adviser to Trump in the 2016 race, was rewarded with a job leading the Justice Department. But he soon went from “highly respected” and “as smart as you get” to “a disaster” who was “not mentally qualified to be attorney general.”
Sessions had carried out Trump’s harsh immigration 12770 KENDALL DR.
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There were similar stories up and down the line — from Coats, who was pushed out after clashes with Trump, to Omarosa Manigault, a former contestant on “The Apprentice” who became a White House 8791 SW 133 ST. Across from The Falls, Next to Total Wine Hours: Mon-Fri 9-8, Sat 9-6, Sun 11-5 (305) 233-3233 290 E. OAKLAND PK BLVD. One Mile East of I-95 on South Side Hours: Mon-Fri 10-8, Sat 9-6, Sun 11-5 (954) 537-1417 adviser and the most visible Black woman in Trump’s inner circle.
“The common denominator in all of these failed interpersonal relationships is Donald Trump,” said Manigault, who penned a 2018 memoir, “Unhinged,” after leaving the administration.
“We all think of ourselves as guardrails trying to keep the train from jumping the tracks, trying to keep him from his worst impulses and from doing more damage. 16173 BISCAYNE BLVD.
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According to Bolton, Trump’s senior staff struggles every day to manage an impulsive, overconfident and often vindictive executive, one who is quick to acquiesce to requests from dictators, unable to focus during intelligence briefings and who spends “a disproportionate share of his time watching his Administration being covered in the press.” 172 N. UNIVERSITY DR.
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