Bolton:Trump ok'd China's camps, didn't know UK had nukes, thought Finland was Russia

[Dill]

(06-19-2020, 01:10 AM)hollodero Wrote: And I might be wrong, but I guess none of your reasoning played much part in Trump's decision for Bolton. If I'd do a youtube search, I might find ten clips of Bolton that possibly wagered more into it than any consideration about policy.

 I said Trump admires authoritarian personalities, and Bolton is one. At the basic level Trump does consider policy, if it's about "standing up" to NK and Iran and the like (but not Russia). If he saw a youtube clip of Bolton advocating a first strike on NK, and chose him as NSA, that would not be the choice of a president worried about starting wars.

Where you might see "policy" on your 10 Youtube clips, Trump would see primarily see attitude and style. And that is what he was choosing. Outside of the Iran Deal, Trump could probably not list the policy differences between McMaster and Bolton, but he could say that Bolton "sounded more" like the guy he wanted.  (This clip conveys a sense of Trump's criteria--his premature announcement of "mad dog" Mattis for DefSec, who was supposedly "most like Patton" of all the generals.) https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article118468543.html

But Trump didn't just see and hear about Bolton from secondary sources.

Remember he interviewed Bolton in 2017 but didn't like his mustache. According to the NYT, thereafter Bolton met "regularly" with Trump while McMaster was still NSA.  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/hr-mcmaster-trump-bolton.html

When the friction with McMaster (who didn't want to rip up the Iran deal) become to much, Trump went to the guy he had already been talking with, despite his mustache--the guy who had an idea about how to win a war with Iran, without using ground forces.

So a gentle disagreement with you--there was more behind the choice of Bolton than an occasional glimpse on Fox and a recommendation from Hannity. Bolton is not someone one chooses because one wants to stay out of wars.  And I think Bolton was restraining Trump more than vice versa--especially Trump's impulses to violate law and protocol--and so he had to, as Bfine puts it, "rectify" his mistake by "firing" Bolton when he quit, to look for someone who would play ball, legal or not.