- Former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton has claimed that the President is more influenced by what is on television than his own advisers.
- “Well, I think it’s a combination of television and listening to people outside the government that he trusts for one reason or another,” Bolton said in a CBS News interview.
- He also expressed doubts about recent White House claims that intelligence on Russian rewards on US troops in Afghanistan was not robust.
- Bolton is currently locked in a legal dispute with the White House after making a series of damaging claims about Trump in a recently released memo.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
Former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton said the president pays more attention to cable news than the advice of his advisers.
In a CBS News “Face the Nation” interview on Sunday, anchorwoman Margaret Brennan asked Bolton if he believed the president was more influenced by what was on television or by his own advisers.
—Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 5, 2020
“Well, I think it’s a combination of television and listening to people outside the government that he trusts, for one reason or another,” Bolton replied.
“I think if you could see the amount of time he actually spent in the Oval Office versus the amount of time he spent in the small dining room of the Oval Office with cable news networks in one form or another, it would be a very interesting statistic. “
It has long been reported that the President spends a significant amount of time glued to cable news, particularly Fox News, sometimes tweeting live about program segments live.
Fox News presenters Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have served as sounding boards and informal advisers to the president, with Carlson even accompanying Trump on a trip to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un last July, while Bolton was sent on a trip to Mongolia.
Since leaving office in September 2019, Bolton has become one of the president’s harshest critics.
Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson reports (and celebrates) Bolton’s departure from the White House in September 2019.
Fox News (YouTube)
In his recently published memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” Bolton makes a series of highly damaging allegations about Trump, including that the President sought help from China to win the 2020 presidential election.
The White House tried unsuccessfully to stop publication of the memoirs, claiming that it contains classified information. Trump has also claimed to contain lies, and has reacted to Bolton’s claims with a series of denials and insults on social media.
Bolton weighs on the Russian fiasco
In Sunday’s interview, Bolton continued to express doubts in recent White House claims that intelligence indicating that Russia paid Taliban militants to kill US troops in Afghanistan was unverified, so the President had not been informed about it.
The White House issued the denial after a series of reports claimed that the President had chosen not to take action after learning of the intelligence.
Three separate Taliban sources confirmed to Insider last week that Russia did pay the group’s extremists to attack US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Bolton said, “Well, I have said in countless interviews, I am not going to reveal classified information. I already have the fight with the president trying to suppress my book in that regard.”
“I will say this,” he said. “All intelligence is spread across the spectrum of uncertainty. And this intelligence in 2020, by the administration’s own admission, was deemed credible enough to give to our allies.”
“So the notion that you only really give the president 100% verified intelligence means you give him almost nothing. And that’s not the way the system works.”
