Former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton warned Republicans against expecting a “bloom of conservatism” if Trump wins a second term in November.
Bolton, who has been among Trump’s harshest Republican critics since he left his administration in September 2019, said in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday that Trump was not an “acceptable” candidate for conservatives.
After suggesting that Nikki Haley, another former Trump official, had shown a lack of “leadership” by acquiescing to the former president’s remarks, Bolton warned other conservative Republicans to brace for disappointment if Trump returns to the White House.
“I think leadership requires people to say that Donald Trump is not acceptable as a Republican candidate,” Bolton said. “I think people shouldn’t get into politics for the jobs they want. They get into politics for the philosophy, and Donald Trump doesn’t have that.”
“Philosophically, no Republican should think that a second Trump term will mean a flourishing of conservatism in Washington,” he added. “That’s not going to happen.”
Chip Somodevilla
Newsweek contacted the Trump campaign by email Monday evening for comment.
Bolton, whose long career in government includes stints in the Reagan and Bush administrations, also argued in Monday’s interview that Trump is neither a true Republican nor a conservative.
“I don’t think of Trump as a Republican,” Bolton said. “I think he’s a Trumpist. He believes in Donald Trump and he’s not a conservative. That’s why I’m in the uncomfortable position of not wanting to vote for either candidate… There are no conservatives on the ballot in November.”
Bolton then told Collins that he still intends to list former Vice President Dick Cheney as his presidential pick, although Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney both recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The fact that Liz and Dick are both voting for Harris has put a damper on my plan to double or triple the national vote for Cheney,” Bolton joked. “But I think right now I’m still going to vote for Dick Cheney because for the same reason I did in 2020: I want to vote for a conservative Republican.”
“It’s important that we don’t let the Republican Party become a cult of personality,” he continued. “Whether Trump wins or loses, there’s going to be a struggle for the Republican Party, between what I would call the Reagan wing of the party and the Trump wing of the party. And a lot depends on that…”
In the comments to Newsweek Earlier this year, Bolton warned that a second Trump term would be “four years of continued crisis” that could cause irreparable “damage” to the country, while predicting that Trump would hire more “enablers” to serve in his administration without offering any criticism.
“I think he’s going to be much more careful about hiring enablers — people who don’t have opinions other than his own, which is not to say that anyone could control Trump as president,” Bolton said. “The country won’t be well served by that.”
In an article published on Truth Social last year, Trump said he considered John Bolton to be one of the stupidest people in government, despite having asked him to join his administration. Trump claimed he had “used” Bolton to intimidate foreign leaders and win “negotiations with that idiot on my side.”
