Mulvaney: Claims in New Bolton Book 'Factually False'

Claims made by former White House national security adviser John Bolton in his new memoir are "factually false," former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Friday, while dismissing the idea that if the White House is deeming much of the book's contents as classified information, the claims must be true. 

They could easily be both,” Mulvaney said on CNN's "New Day." “You could have some things in there that are false, and certainly the excerpts I’ve read, I’ve not seen the whole book, I’m not sure why I didn’t receive a courtesy copy of it. I understand I’m in there several times over, but the excerpts that I’ve seen have been factually false, and it’s very likely or possible that the stuff we’ve not seen is classified.”

Mulvaney added that Trump does "not hire very well," even though the president has hired him for three spots himself, and said Bolton was fired because they were "misaligned." 

"John Bolton was interested in more military action in Venezuela, interested in more military action in Iran, interested in more military action in Korea and the president of the United States simply was not, and those two things were simply not reconcilable," said Mulvaney. 

Mulvaney Friday also said Bolton had a "sort of whimsical spin" when writing in the book  that during their meeting in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, President Donald Trump had begged Chinese leader Xi Jinping for help to win the 2020 election, disregarded China's human rights violations, and struggled while finding a solid trade policy. 

"I was at the meeting. Secretary (Mike) Pompeo was at the meeting. Secretary Steven Mnuchin was at the meeting," said Mulvaney. "Did the president talk about the Chinese buying more American products, yes, he talked about that every time he talked to President Xi. Would it be good for the country and thus good for the president's re-election chances? Yes, it would be. But to put those two statements together, that's bizarre."

Meanwhile, Bolton never complained to White House counsel at the time of the meeting, or to the "probably a dozen of us" who were at the meeting, said Mulvaney, but instead, "he's using it to help sell his books."

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