AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton said in a recent interview that Donald Trump lacks the intellect to be a dictator.
Bolton, who served under Trump, spoke with the French daily newspaper Le Figaro for an interview that was published on Thursday.
Trump’s status as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has sounded alarm bells after he attempted to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election. The former president falsely claimed the contest was rigged against him and leaned on officials in states he lost in a vain attempt to overturn the results. Those efforts culminated in the deadly Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Bolton has since been one of Trump’s fiercest critics in a long line of disillusioned former officials who served under the ex-president.
According to a translation of parts of the Le Figaro interview by The Telegraph published on Friday, Bolton remained true to form.
“The American Constitution and its institutions are strong,” he said. “Trump attacked them by trying to call into question the result of the elections, and he failed. If he wasn’t able to steal the election when he was in the Oval Office, it’s not going to happen in November from Mar-a-Lago. The Constitution is very clear, there will be no third term.”
The French publication asked Bolton if Trump has Julius Caesar-esque aspirations of becoming a dictator.
“He hasn’t got the brains! He’s a property developer, for God’s sake!” replied Bolton, who expressed concern that if elected again, Trump will withdraw from the NATO security alliance.
“Trump, when he has an idea, comes back to it again and again, then gets distracted, forgets, but eventually comes back to it and acts on it,” he said. “That’s why leaving NATO is a real possibility. A lot of people think it’s just a negotiating tool, but I don’t think so.”
Bolton has previously said that if Trump wins in November, there will be “celebrations in the Kremlin.”
