Even before publication of John Bolton’s long-awaited and long-blocked book “The Room Where It Happened,” some of the most scathing and damaging passages on Trump’s “stunning ignorance,” incompetence, corruption and near treasonous performance in the White House are being widely quoted.
Former National-Security advisor John Bolton was one of Trump’s closest and most praised top aides, until he wasn’t, and one of the right wing’s most adored heroes, until he wasn’t.
David Ignatius writes at the Washington Post:
As much as you think you know about the arrogance, vanity and sheer incompetence of Trump’s years in the White House, Bolton’s account will still astonish you. He narrates his 17 months as national security adviser in remarkable detail. He seems to have collated every Trump rant, reckless phone call, and muttered aside. No wonder the White House was so determined to block this book: It eviscerates Trump’s foreign policy record and exposes him, in Bolton’s words, as “stunningly uninformed.
Perhaps some of the most scurrilous incidents documented by Bolton – in addition to those related to Ukraine, Turkey, North Korea, etc. – concern Trump’s dealings with China.
In one sickening excerpt, Bolton claims Trump told China’s Xi Jinping he could proceed in building detainment camps for the Uyghur Muslims, a minority group in western China.
Equally scurrilous, Bolton claims that Trump asked a foreign country, China again, to help him win the 2020 US presidential election – the art of the deal Trump is now quite an expert at.
Ignatius writes the “book ought to be a wake-up call, finally, to Republicans who have slavishly defended Trump and belittled his critics.”
Having seen Republicans grovel for almost four years before their leader, I would be very surprised if any of this pricks the conscience of Republican leaders.
One group of Republicans with a conscience, however, has been speaking truth to power.
In a new ad, coming out the same day Bolton’s harsh condemnation of Trump’s shady China dealings are being revealed, the Lincoln Project addresses how Trump is being “rolled” by China and its powerful President Xi Jinping.
“They know who Donald Trump is weak, corrupt, ridiculed,” a narrator in the ad says, “China beats him every time.”
Watch it below.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.