Former national security adviser John Bolton said President Trump’s mind is “full of mush” as he navigates international affairs and ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
Bolton joined CNN’s “The Source” Monday evening, just hours after the U.S. voted against a UN resolution that would have condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
“There are a lot of strange votes of the United Nations that I participated in,” he told host Kaitlan Collins. “It wasn’t so much the vote itself, as the fact we are aligned with what has always been NATO’s principal threat.”
“We have sided now, in this vote, with NATO’s principal adversary,” he added. “It’s just unthinkable that a president could do that.”
Seventeen other countries in the UN General Assembly joined the U.S. in voting against the condemnation resolution. The vote occurred on the three-year anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine.
The move shows a shift as Trump has seemingly begun to side with Russia over the conflict. He held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month and has criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for allowing the war to happen and claimed he is a dictator.
U.S. and Russian officials have also essentially sidelined Ukraine and other allies in ceasefire negotiations and caused concern for the region and what it may signal to China.
Bolton was asked by host Collins about whether it’s a negotiating strategy that Trump refuses to call Putin a dictator.
“Look, Trump’s defenders say everything he says is a negotiating strategy, including when he says A and the next day says not A, it’s all just a negotiating strategy,” Bolton replied. “I think it’s … an indication his mind is full of mush and he says whatever comes into it.”
Bolton, who also previously served as ambassador to the U.N., argued that Putin and Trump consider one another friends, and so he would not call a friend a dictator. He also highlighted the long-standing disdain between Trump and Zelensky, noting that it’s “no sweat off” the president’s back to call the Ukrainian leader an authoritarian.
“This is somebody who is not fit to be president,” Bolton said of Trump. “He can’t tell America’s friends from its enemies.”
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
