Former national security adviser John Bolton said he won’t vote for President Trump in the 2020 election, but he won’t be voting for Joe Biden either.
The longtime Republican, who just scored a victory in federal court against the Trump administration’s attempt to block his tell-all book, told the Daily Telegraph his experience working for Trump convinced him to oppose his former boss.
According to the outlet, Bolton said he will vote for former Vice President Biden, a Democrat, in the general election contest. But Bolton’s spokesperson denied this is what he said. “It is incorrect. He will not be voting for Joe Biden, nor will he be voting for Donald Trump,” Bolton’s representative said.
Sarah Tinsley, Bolton’s spokeswoman, further stated that Bolton “has consistently said in recent days he will be writing in the name of a conservative Republican. Let there be no doubt — he will not be voting for Trump or Biden.”
The report did quote Bolton saying he could not support Trump after voting for him in the last election.
“In 2016 I voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton,” Bolton told the outlet. “Now, having seen this president up close, I cannot do this again. My concern is for the country, and he does not represent the Republican cause that I want to back.”
Bolton said Trump lacks a “philosophical grounding or strategy” and claimed the president lacks the ability to tell the difference between his self-interest and the national interest of the United States, “which is very dangerous for the country.”
Bolton separately told ABC News that he hopes Trump will be a one-term president. “I hope (history) will remember him as a one-term president who didn’t plunge the country irretrievably into a downward spiral we can’t recall from. We can get over one term — I have absolute confidence, even if it’s not the miracle of a conservative Republican being elected in November. Two terms, I’m more troubled about,” he said.
Bolton is the head of a pair of political action committees dedicated to electing Republican candidates. He also served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush.
Bolton’s memoir, The Room Where it Happened, is set to go on sale next week after a judge denied the Trump administration’s request to block it while warning it likely risked national security by disclosing classified information. In it, according to a copy of the book obtained by the Washington Examiner, Bolton claims Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help his reelection campaign, among other claims.
Trump told the Wall Street Journal that Bolton is a “liar,” and members of his administration have come to his defense. For instance, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called him “a traitor who damaged America by violating his sacred trust with its people.”
Bolton, who has been criticized by Democrats for not testifying in last year’s impeachment investigation, stressed he has an obligation to inform the country what transpired during his tenure in the White House.
“When you are in a senior position you have an obligation to tell the truth,” he said to the Daily Telegraph. “I was concerned after 17 months in the administration that he [Trump] did not have the requisite competence to be president, and the American people need to know about that.”
