Ex-President Donald Trump‘s former national security adviser John Bolton has warned Republicans against assuming that there will be a “flowering of conservatism” if Trump wins a second term in November.
Bolton, who has been among Trump’s harshest Republican critics since leaving his administration in September 2019, said during an interview with CNN‘s Kaitlan Collins on Monday that Trump was not an “acceptable” candidate for conservatives.
After suggesting that fellow ex-Trump official Nikki Haley showed a lack of “leadership” by acquiescing to the former president, Bolton warned other conservative Republicans to prepare for disappointment if Trump returns to the White House.
“I think leadership requires people saying Donald Trump is not acceptable as the Republican nominee,” Bolton said. “I think people shouldn’t get into politics for the jobs they want. They get in it for philosophy, and Donald Trump doesn’t have one.”
“From a philosophical point of view, no Republican should assume that a second Trump term is going to be the flowering of conservatism in Washington,” he added. “That isn’t going to happen.”
Chip Somodevilla
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump campaign via email on Monday night.
Bolton, whose long career in government included stints in the Reagan and both Bush administrations, also argued during Monday’s interview that Trump is neither a true Republican nor a conservative.
“I don’t consider Trump much of a Republican,” Bolton said. “I think he is a Trumpist. He believes in Donald Trump and he is not a conservative. So, that’s why I’m in the uncomfortable position of not wanting to vote for either candidate … There’s no conservative on the ballot this November.”
Bolton went on to tell Collins that he still intends to write in former Vice President Dick Cheney as his presidential pick, despite Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney both recently endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The fact that Liz and Dick are both voting for Harris has put a wrench into my plan to double or triple the nationwide Cheney vote,” Bolton joked. “But I think as of now, I’m still gonna vote for Dick Cheney because, for the same reason I did in 2020: I want to vote for a conservative Republican.”
“It’s important that we not allow the Republican Party to be turned into a cult of personality,” he continued. “After Trump wins or loses, there will be a fight for the Republican Party, from what I would call the Reaganite wing of the party against the Trump wing of the party. And a lot rides on it …”
In comments to Newsweek earlier this year, Bolton warned that a second Trump term would be “four years of continuing crisis” that could cause irreparable “damage” to the country, while predicting that Trump would hire more “enablers” to serve in his administration without offering any criticism.
“I think he’ll take much greater care simply to hire enablers—people who don’t have any opinions other than what his are, which is not to say anybody could control Trump as president anyway,” Bolton said. “The country won’t be well-served.”
In a Truth Social post last year, Trump said that he “found John Bolton to be one of the dumbest people in Government” despite asking him to join his administration. Trump claimed that he “used” Bolton to intimidate foreign leaders and win “negotiations with this moron by my side.”