President Donald Trump is "driven day to day and hour to hour" about how he is perceived by the American people, not policy, according to a rejected John Bolton on Wednesday.
"He's worried about how people see him," Bolton told CNN's "The Situation Room" on Wednesday. "He's not so worried about what he's actually doing."
Bolton called Trump's global coronavirus pandemic response an "empty chair" because he was hesitant to have his presidency come unglued, adding he would not be surprised if Trump might be inclined to slow down COVID-19 testing if it would help his re-election campaign.
"I think there is an empty chair in the Oval Office, because the president did not want to hear bad news about Xi Jinping, his friend," Bolton told host Wolf Blitzer. "He did not want to hear bad news about the cover-up of the virus in China, or its potential effect on the China trade deal that he wants so much. And he didn't want to hear about the potential impact of a pandemic on the American economy and its effect on his re-election.
"Turning a blind eye to all these early signs I think hampered the country's ability to deal with this, and continues to do so."
Bolton admitted the COVID-19 mitigation is on the local leaders, but he still rebukes the Trump administration's lack of a "comprehensive strategy."
"I am afraid that the erratic nature of the policies as they've evolved since January when the experts really began to sense that this problem might be out there has characterized our response throughout, and I'm worried that it continues to be the pattern that the president follows," Bolton said.
"It's not part of a comprehensive strategy. I think in a country the size of the United States, state and local authorities should have a big role, but at the federal level, the response has not been consistent."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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