Former national security adviser John Bolton went after former President Trump on Sunday, warning that the Russian government would cheer on Trump’s reelection because they see him as an “easy mark.”
“If Trump is elected, there’ll be celebrations in the Kremlin,” Bolton said in an MSNBC “Inside with Jen Psaki” interview Sunday. “There’s no doubt about it because Putin thinks that he is an easy mark.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised Trump in the past but nearly endorsed President Biden last week. The Russian leader said Biden would make a “more predictable” president, and is whom he would prefer to win the election.
Bolton brushed the comments off, however, saying Putin “really outdid himself” in the statement’s “disinformation.”
Trump has long held up his good relationship with Putin as an example of his foreign policy expertise, but Bolton said the former president is merely playing into Putin’s hands.
He specifically criticized Trump for refusing to pin the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Putin. Navalny was reported dead on Friday, and domestic Putin critics and foreign leaders, including President Biden, have labeled it a likely political assassination.
“Well, heaven forbid [Trump] say anything critical of Vladimir Putin,” Bolton said. “Look, accidents don’t happen in those kinds of Russian prison camps.”
Trump made his first comments on Navalny’s death Monday, after Bolton’s interview, comparing the death to his own legal situation. He did not call out Putin, as other leaders have.
Trump similarly did not criticize Putin for the 2020 attempted assassination of Navalny by poisoning, while many foreign leaders did blame Putin.
“It’s obviously part of the pattern. He simply doesn’t want to criticize his friend Putin, because in Trump’s mind, if he’s got a good relationship with Putin, the U.S. has a good relationship with Russia,” Bolton continued. “This is the kind of thing that tells Putin that Trump simply doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Referring to the 2018 Helsinki, Finland, summit between Trump and Putin, Bolton said it was a good thing that the pair’s one-one-one conversation was dominated by Putin. Bolton was present in Helsinki with the former president as his national security adviser.
“The less time Trump is actually saying anything to Vladimir Putin, that’s a good thing,” he said of the summit.
Bolton also warned about Trump’s mounting legal fees and judgements, noting that foreign powers could use his financial situation as leverage for foreign policy goals. Trump was levied a massive $355 million ruling last week in a New York business fraud case and was ordered to pay another $83 million in a defamation case last month.
“I think this is one of the demonstrations why Trump really is not fit for office,” Bolton said. “He is consumed by these troubles, his family is consumed by them. And I think foreigners will try to take advantage of it one way or another. They may be doing it already.”