Former National Security Advisor John Bolton mocked ‘snowflakes’ who were offended by his admission that he helped to plan coups d’état during his diplomatic career.
Bolton, 73, made the astonishing admission in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper as he denied claims that the Jan. 6 riot was an attempted coup.
The following day, Bolton made an appearance on the right-wing network Newsmax, where he said: ‘I think there are a lot of snowflakes out there that don’t understand what you need to do to protect the United States.’
He added: ‘I’m not going to get into specifics. I did write about Venezuela in my memoir, and I think that any president that’s not willing to do what it takes to protect the interests of the American people needs to have some counseling.’
One person who had a problem with the remarks was former CIA agent John Sipher, who said on Twitter that Bolton was ‘full of s**t. He’s never planned a coup.’
Sipher went on to say: ‘My point is that Bolton’s comment is dangerous because it sends a false signal to the American people that senior officials sit in the White House and choreograph coups. Nonsense.’
John Bolton said in an appearance on Newsmax: ‘I think there are a lot of snowflakes out there that don’t understand what you need to do to protect the United States’
During the same interview, Bolton went into the threats facing the United States, including Russia, China and ‘adversaries’ coming across the southern border
During the same interview, Bolton criticized President Joe Biden’s ongoing trip to the Middle East.
‘The Biden administration has been alienated very badly by its unrelenting determination to get back in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal,’ the former US ambassador to the United Nations said.
‘That deal was a mistake when we made it. The Trump administration pulled out of in 2018, quite rightly, but Biden has spent a year and a half trying to get back into it. The Saudis, the other Gulf Arab states, like Israel, see Iran as a threat to their peace and security,’ he added.
Bolton went on to say he felt the biggest threats to United States security right now are China and Russia. He also said that there is also danger in the form of the Middle East, North Korea, Iran and issues on the US-Mexico border.
Speaking about the southern border, Bolton said those coming across the border are not just migrants but ‘adversaries of ours who can see that the border is open. It’s a real danger, something that the Biden administration seems unwilling to acknowledge is even a problem.’
In an interview with CNN, former National Security Advisor John Bolton let slip on Tuesday that he has helped stage coups in other countries
The day after the interview, a Washington Post article speculated that Bolton may have been involved in coups in Panama, Afghanistan, in 1992 and 2001, Georgia and Haiti
On Tuesday night, Bolton told Tapper on CNN: ‘It’s not an attack on our democracy,’ Bolton said of the Capitol riot. ‘It’s Donald Trump looking after Donald Trump. It’s a once in a lifetime occurrence.’
But Tapper countered his claims, noting: ‘One does not have to be brilliant to plan a coup.’
‘I disagree with that as someone who helped plan coups d’etat, not here, but in other places, it takes a lot of work,’ Bolton responded in the episode of The Lead. ‘And that’s not what he did.’
Instead, Bolton said the former president ‘was just stumbling around from one idea to another, and ultimately he did unleash the rioters at the Capitol, as to that, there’s no doubt, but not to overthrow the Constitution to buy more time to throw the matter back to the states and try to redo the issue.
‘And if you don’t believe that, you’re going to overreact, and I think that’s a real risk for [the House Committee investigating the January 6 riot], which has done a lot of great work – mostly when the witnesses testify, not when the members are opining.
‘It is invariably the case that when you go too far to prove your case, you undermine it,’ he added.
Bolton said of Jan. 6: ‘It’s Donald Trump looking after Donald Trump. It’s a once in a lifetime occurrence’
Later on in the interview, Tapper presses Bolton about his claims, asking him to elaborate on his ‘expertise having planned coups’ and questioning whether they were ‘successful.’
At that point, Bolton responded that in his 2020 memoir, he wrote about the United States’ support for the failed attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in 2019.
‘Not that we had all that much to do with it,’ he said, ‘but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overthrow an illegally-elected president and they failed.’
The day after the interview, a Washington Post article speculated that Bolton may have been involved in coups in Panama, Afghanistan, in 1992 and 2001, Georgia and Haiti.
Bolton was serving as the national security advisor for then-President Donald Trump when Venezuelan political prisoner Leopoldo Lopez – who had the backing of the United States – declared the end of Maduro’s regime on April 30, 2019.
The head of the supreme court then declared that Maduro was an illegitimate leader, and Vladimir Padrino, head of the armed forces, publicly backed the Supreme Court’s decision.
The effort ultimately failed when members of Maduro’s regime – who opposition leaders had promised would stay in power – lost trust in the opposition and stood by Maduro.
When pressed on the matter further, Bolton brought up the failed attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in 2019, when the US publicly backed the opposition. Anti-government protesters are seen here clashing with security forces at the time
The attempted coup ultimately failed when regime members who opposition leaders thought were on their side remained loyal to Maduro
At the time, the Washington Post reported Bolton saying: ‘This is clearly not a coup.’
But in the interview on Tuesday, Bolton seemed to imply it was a coup, noting: ‘The notion that Donald Trump was half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition is laughable.’
Bolton has been involved in international conflicts for decades, holding a major role in arms control during the George W Bush administration and serving as an ambassador to the United Nations in 2005 and 2006.
He has often embraced foreign intervention, having supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and advocated for regime change in Iran prior to joining Trump’s administration.
His comments about planning coups came as the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack continues to present evidence suggesting Trump spurred protesters to march to the Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Bolton denied in his interview that the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol was an attempted coup
His comments came ahead of a hearing by the House Select Committee investigating the riot, when rioter Stephen Ayres (center) testified about his decision to enter the building
The House Committee displayed images of organizing maps at the hearing on Tuesday
On Tuesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, announced that the committee had spoken to six people in a meeting with the former president to discuss his claims of election fraud.
‘What ensued was a heated and profane’ argument, Raskin said, that included ‘challenges to physically fight.’
In a clip of Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani’s testimony, he says he told the White House lawyers they weren’t ‘tough enough’ and that they were a ‘bunch of p***ies’ for claiming there was not enough evidence of election fraud.
Raskin said that after the unhinged meeting, Trump sent out a tweet calling on his supporters to come to the Capitol on Jan. 6: ‘It will be wild,’ Trump wrote.
Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy later displayed text messages obtained from former Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson where she raised red flags to Meadows about how the January 6 ‘Save America’ rally could get out of hand.
She said that Trump loved the ‘crazies’ which was why some of them were speaking at his rally.
‘He loved people who viciously defended him in public,’ Pierson said in recorded testimony about her texts, expressing particular concern about right-wing commentators Alex Jones and Ali Alexander.
And after a short break, Stephen Ayres, one of the committee’s two witnesses who attended the riot on January 6, said that he did not plan on going to the US Capitol when he attended Donald Trump’s ‘Stop The Steal’ rally on the White House ellipse.
Asked why he changed his mind, Ayres said: ‘The president got everybody riled up… we were just following what he said.’
He said it was Trump’s urging on social media that made him want to come to Washington, DC that day.
Ayres said that he did not decide to leave until Trump tweeted asking rioters to go home in the late afternoon. Other witnesses have said they urged Trump to publicly call off the rioters much earlier.
‘Basically, when President Trump put his tweet out, we literally left right after that come out,’ Ayres said. ‘You know, to me, if he would have done that earlier in a day 1:30 I, you know, we wouldn’t be in this, maybe we wouldn’t be in this bad situation or so.’
Ayres, who no longer believes the election was stolen from Trump, said it ‘makes me mad’ that Trump is still promoting since-debunked election fraud claims.
‘I was hanging on every word. He was saying everything he was putting out I was following it. I mean, if I was doing it, hundreds of thousands or millions of other people were doing it or maybe even still doing it.’
Ayres said he felt like he had ‘horse blinders on.’ ‘I was locked in the whole time, he said. Ayres pled guilty to charges for joining the riot that day but has not yet been sentenced.