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JOHN BOLTON’S LONELY BOOK TOUR. The former national security adviser’s new book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” is not officially published until Tuesday, but it’s all over Washington now. News organizations have copies, its key anecdotes have been reported, and ABC News’ exclusive one-on-one special event interview with Bolton, scheduled for Sunday night, seems a little old already.
Here’s the question: Who is Bolton’s audience? Many Democrats have long hated Bolton, but now they hate him more for refusing to testify during the impeachment of President Trump. Some NeverTrump Republicans are former allies of Bolton, but they are unhappy with him for the same reason. And Republican Trump supporters — they will never forgive him for turning on the president. That doesn’t leave many people.
Ironically, for those who remember the Ukraine impeachment flap, the big news in Bolton’s book concerns China. Bolton writes that in a 2019 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump asked Xi to increase Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural goods to help Trump keep the support of farmers in key states for the 2020 election. “[Trump] stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome,” Bolton writes.
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Meanwhile, Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative, denied Bolton’s account. “Absolutely untrue, never happened,” Lighthizer said on Capitol Hill Wednesday. “I was there, I have no recollection of that ever happening. I don’t believe it’s true. I don’t believe it ever happened.”
“A WASHED-UP GUY.” Meanwhile, President Trump himself, speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity Wednesday night, defended his administration’s legal efforts to stop publication of Bolton’s book. “He broke the law,” Trump said. “He was a washed-up guy. I gave him a chance….But he broke the law.”
When he begins his publicity tour, Bolton will likely spend most of his time talking about two things: His allegations against Trump and his refusal to testify during impeachment. Part of the latter will involve answering the criticism of still-angry House Democrats. “It is curious to me that he now has something to say, when he could have stepped forward as a patriot when the stakes were high and the president was on trial and he ran and hid in the other direction,” said Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a House impeachment manager, Wednesday.
For his part, Bolton accused Democrats of committing “impeachment malpractice” by focusing the articles of impeachment on the Ukraine matter, rather than broadening them to include other issues. Yes, Democrats made mistake after mistake. Their biggest problem was that Trump did not commit an impeachable offense. But the fact is, Bolton refused to talk when House Democrats would have welcomed his testimony. It’s no surprise a lot of people are not interested in hearing from Bolton now.
But that’s just people in Washington. On Wednesday night, Bolton’s book, still six days from release, was #1 on Amazon.
