Former national security adviser John Bolton. Photo / AP
John Bolton is not a popular man at the moment.
The former White House national security adviser's tell-all memoir about his time working for President Donald Trump is being panned by pretty much everyone in the United States – Republicans, Democrats, even apolitical book reviewers.
"The book is bloated with self-importance, even though what it mostly recounts is Bolton not being able to accomplish very much," says The New York Times.
"It toggles between two discordant registers: exceedingly tedious and slightly unhinged."
The Washington Post is a little less brutal, but does note Bolton is "utterly lacking" in self-criticism.
All reviewers seem to agree he should have revealed the explosive information in his book months ago, during the impeachment proceedings against Trump.
That's a view very much shared by Democrats in Congress, who could not convince Bolton to testify when they were building their case against the President late last year.
"As damning as the allegations against the President are in that book, they were equally damning of John Bolton for keeping it concealed at a time when it really mattered to the country," Congressman Adam Schiff, who led the prosecution during Trump's impeachment trial, told CNN today.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters she was consulting with her colleagues to determine whether they should subpoena Bolton to testify now, albeit belatedly.
The most scathing criticism of Bolton, however, has come from Trump and his supporters in the Republican Party.
The President himself has dismissed his former adviser as a "wacko", "sick puppy" and "disgruntled, boring fool".
Wacko John Bolton’s “exceedingly tedious”(New York Times) book is made up of lies & fake stories. Said all good about me, in print, until the day I fired him. A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war. Never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped. What a dope!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
When Wacko John Bolton went on Deface the Nation and so stupidly said that he looked at the “Libyan Model” for North Korea, all hell broke out. Kim Jong Un, who we were getting along with very well, went “ballistic”, just like his missiles - and rightfully so....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
When Wacko John Bolton went on Deface the Nation and so stupidly said that he looked at the “Libyan Model” for North Korea, all hell broke out. Kim Jong Un, who we were getting along with very well, went “ballistic”, just like his missiles - and rightfully so....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has gone even further.
In a curt statement released today, which he then republished on Twitter, Pompeo said Bolton's book was full of "lies, fully-spun half-truths and outright falsehoods", and labelled his former colleague "a traitor who damaged America".
Pompeo's statement came with the headline "I Was In The Room Too", a reference to the title of Bolton's book, The Room Where It Happened.
His use of the word traitor has been echoed by others, including at least one White House official, along with media figures friendly to the President.
It is both sad and dangerous that John Bolton’s final public role is that of a traitor who damaged America by violating his sacred trust with its people. To our friends around the world: you know that President @realDonaldTrump's America is a force for good in the world.
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) June 19, 2020
John Bolton is undoubtedly a traitor who revealed classified information to the world, and told many lies/stories based on what I’ve seen from the excerpts. He has betrayed his Country. Treasonous! https://t.co/oSUc6qHj7W
— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸 (@Scavino45) June 19, 2020
You might wonder why Pompeo is so riled up, given the book mostly targets his boss. Well, he does get a mention in it.
Bolton writes that during Trump's meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in 2018, Pompeo slipped Bolton a note reading simply: "He is so full of s***."
The "he" in question was Trump, not Kim.
Bolton also claims the President spent months pestering Pompeo to deliver Kim an autographed CD of Elton John's song Rocket Man as a gift.
Trump had initially nicknamed Kim "little Rocket Man" – because the dictator liked to test-fire missiles – but as the President warmed up to Kim, he turned the disparaging moniker into a term of endearment.
"Getting this CD to Kim remained a high priority for several months," Bolton says.
Neither of the anecdotes are particularly flattering for Pompeo, whose own public image casts him as one of Trump's most loyal allies.
Despite the less than complimentary reactions to Bolton's book, it is currently at number one on Amazon's bestseller chart for the United States.
The book in fourth place is Too Much and Never Enough – another upcoming takedown of the President, authored by his niece Mary Trump.
And the former national security adviser is not taking the criticism without firing back.
This week Bolton sat down for a prerecorded interview with veteran ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz. The whole thing is set to air on Sunday, US time, but parts have already been released.
In those excerpts, Bolton delivers a scathing assessment of the Trump White House.
"You describe the President as erratic, foolish, behaved irrationally, bizarrely. You can't leave him alone for a minute. He saw conspiracies behind rocks and was stunningly uninformed. He couldn't tell the difference between his personal interests and the country's interests," Raddatz says in one of the clips, quoting Bolton's book.
"I don't think he's fit for office. I don't think he has the competence to carry out the job," Bolton says.
"There really isn't any guiding principle [to his presidency] that I was able to discern, other than what's good for Donald Trump's re-election.
"I think he was so focused on the re-election that longer-term considerations fell by the wayside.
"So if he thought he could get a photo opportunity with Kim Jong-un at the demilitarised zone in Korea, there was considerable emphasis on the photo opportunity and the press reaction to it. And little or no focus on what such meetings did for the bargaining position of the United States."
"I don't think he's fit for office," former national security adviser John Bolton says of Pres. Trump. "I don't think he has the competence to carry out the job."
— ABC News (@ABC) June 18, 2020
Watch more from Bolton's interview with @MarthaRaddatz Sunday at 9|8c. https://t.co/D2NIAHWJD9 pic.twitter.com/EnTqqrsnwr
Bolton also claims he has no intention of responding to whatever additional criticism Trump hits him with.
"I'm not really going to respond to that," he says.
"I think it's unbecoming of the office of President. I think it degrades the political civil discourse in our country, and [I'm] just not going to respond to him."
Defence Minister Judith Collins and Foreign Minister Winston Peters on US bombing of Iran. Video / NZ Herald