White House trade adviser Peter Navarro tore into ex-Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton’s scathing new tell-all book on Thursday, calling it “revenge porn.”
“It’s the deep swamp political equivalent of revenge porn.” Navarro said in a Fox News interview on Thursday. “The guy got fired because he didn’t obey the chain of command, because he was out of touch with what President Donald J. Trump stands for as far as foreign policy.”
White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro blasted ex-Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton's new book in a Fox News interview on Thursday, calling it “deep swamp revenge porn.” pic.twitter.com/mpWUUhz7Wy
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) June 18, 2020
Navarro told Fox News that “book deal, big lie John Bolton” was one of the least effective officials in the Trump White House and criticized Bolton for his trademark hawkishness on foreign policy that Navarro says first got him in hot water in the Bush administration.
The White House has launched increasingly fiery attacks on Bolton after portions of his forthcoming memoir leaked Wednesday.
Navarro, following the lead of President Trump, who sent out vicious tweets about Bolton on Thursday morning, ripped both Bolton’s character and the book’s allegations that Trump asked China for reelection help, claiming that Bolton “had nothing to do” with “big issues like China.”
Navarro instead described the former national security adviser as a sort of “warlord” who, he alleges, “spent lot of time trying to engineer coups in places like Venezuela.”
“He comes in here in his like seersucker summer suits with the big mustache. I was in a staff meeting one time; he walked in and he was absolutely giddy at the prospect of a coup in Venezuela,” Navarro said. “It was like weird, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Wait a minute. This is a serious, serious matter and he is giddy. There’s something wrong with that dude.’”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in similar stride appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning and made attempts at sowing doubt around Bolton’s account.
“He’s discredited on both sides of the aisle, and if you thought [former FBI Director James] Comey was the most disliked man in America, I think John Bolton has now taken that title,” McEnany said.
The Department of Justice took frantic steps to stop the book, including a lawsuit which was filed on Tuesday and then an emergency order which it issued on Wednesday.
