Former national security adviser to Donald Trump John Bolton called the former US president’s act “old and tired,” and said the Republican Party is ready for a “fresh face.”
Bolton is the latest ex-White House official to criticize former president Trump after Republicans underperformed in this month’s midterm elections, adding to a losing streak that has some believing he is now harming rather than helping the party.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, Bolton, who served in Trump’s White House from 2018 to 2019, also mentioned Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a possible candidate.
Bolton stated that he has conducted his own polling, which shows that former president Trump’s support within the party has been steadily declining for the past two years.
He said: “One question we asked was: do you want Trump or do you want a fresh face? I think in our last poll over 50% said they wanted a fresh face. That’s only going to continue. I personally don’t think Biden is going to end up running on the Democratic side and that’ll have an impact as well.”
Bolton also stated that he has spoken with supporters and others about “what happened” in the midterm elections, and that several people have “just switched Trump off in their brain.”
“Even if they loved his style, loved his approach, loved his policies, loved everything about him, they don’t want to lose and the fear is, given the results on Nov. 8, that if he got the nomination, not only would he lose the general election, but he would take an awful lot of Republican candidates down with him,” Bolton said in an interview with The Guardian.
Bolton, now 74, served as the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush in 2005-06 and was a vocal supporter of the Iraq war. He was appointed as former president Trump’s national security adviser in 2018, only to be fired the following year. He then wrote a scathing memoir in which he declared the former president incompetent and unfit for office.
John Bolton now joins Donald Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, attorney general William Barr, UN ambassador Nikki Haley, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and short term ally Chris Christie in a growing rebellion among alumni who argue, overtly or subtly, that the former president has become an electoral liability.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is considering another presidential run in 2024, urged the Republican Party to “stop being afraid of any one person” during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting last weekend.
“We keep losing and losing and losing,” Christie said. “And the fact of the matter is the reason we’re losing is because Donald Trump has put himself before everyone else.”
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has also hinted at a presidential run in 2024, aimed a shot at the former president last week.
Former president Trump announced his third consecutive presidential run last week, only to have his problems exacerbated when the attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel to lead federal investigations into his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and removal of classified documents from the White House.
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