Bolton book says Trump sought Xi’s 2020 vote help

Bloomberg

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton writes in a new book that President Donald Trump asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to help him win re-election by buying more US farm products, according to an excerpt published by the Wall Street Journal.
The disclosure is part of a devastating portrayal of Trump’s conduct of foreign policy by Bolton, the most senior official in this White House so far to publish an account of his experience. The book is poised to further burden Trump’s already struggling effort to secure a second term.
In the book, which is scheduled to be released next week, Bolton describes a discussion between Trump and Xi at last year’s Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan. Bolton writes that Trump was “pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win” but said he could not print the president’s exact words because of the
government’s pre-publication review process for classified material forbade it, according to the excerpt.
The former top security aide said the result was emblematic of “the confluence in Trump’s mind of his own political interests and US national interests,” writing that he routinely made foreign policy choices in order to benefit himself politically.
“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my White House tenure that wasn’t driven by re-election calculations,” Bolton writes.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing that the country “will not interfere in the US’s internal affairs and election.”
The Trump administration has been trying to stop the book’s publication, and asked a federal judge in Washington to grant an emergency restraining order. But the New York Times and the Washington Post have both published reports on Bolton’s book.
In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump said that Bolton “broke the law, very simple. As much as it’s going to be broken.” He belittled Bolton as a “washed up guy” when he joined the administration. Trump lashed out at his former adviser in tweets early Thursday. He earlier told the Wall Street Journal that Bolton was “a liar” and offered a vindication of his foreign policies.
A Trump campaign spokesman, Tim Murtaugh, said on Bloomberg Television that Bolton’s allegation Trump sought Xi’s intervention in his re-election is “absurd.” “John Bolton is just trying to sell books, that’s all there is to it,” he said. But the White House is already struggling to consistently rebut Bolton’s account. While Trump said that “maybe he’s not telling the truth,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the book is “full of classified information” without denying Bolton’s assertions.

Trump not fit for office, lacks ‘competence’, says Bolton
Bloomberg

President Donald Trump is not “fit for office” in part because he was solely focussed on his political fortunes, former national security adviser John Bolton said in an interview with ABC News.
“I don’t think he’s fit for office. I don’t think he has the competence to carry out the job,” Bolton said in a portion of the interview that aired on Thursday.
Bolton’s tell-all memoir is a withering criticism of Trump’s leadership as president by a man who served as one of his closest advisers. It alleges that Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win re-election by buying more US farm products, one of many examples that Bolton says the House could have investigated in its impeachment probe. “There really isn’t any guiding principle that I was able to discern other than what’s good for Donald Trump’s re-election,” Bolton said. “He was so focused on the re-election that longer-term considerations fell by the wayside.”
Trump accused Bolton of breaking the law by trying to publish the book, which the president said contains classified information.