Republicans, especially those who are staunch supporters of former President Donald Trump, have argued that there would be no crisis in Ukraine had Trump won a second term. However, according to Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, the former president would have withdrawn from the NATO alliance if he had won a second term.
Speaking to the Washington Post Friday last week, Bolton, who was also present during the infamous call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that Trump would have withdrawn the US from the alliance if he won a second term. Bolton, according to the paper, said that Trump was on the verge of withdrawing the US from NATO in 2018, reiterating the claim he made in his book in 2020.
According to Bolton in his book, he tried to convince Trump not to withdraw the US from NATO at the time. To note, Trump also withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal during his presidency.
“In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO,” said Bolton. “And I think Putin was waiting for that.”
Trump ultimately lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 elections, a loss that the former president would not admit to this day.
This was not the first time Bolton pushed back on Trump supporters. In an appearance on right-wing network Newsmax, Bolton told the host that the now-former president did not know where Ukraine was and that it was “not accurate to say that Trump’s behavior somehow deterred the Russians.”
Meanwhile, the conservative columnist for the Washington Post George Will, says that the former president’s influence in the country’s political sphere is coming to an end. In his piece for the newspaper, Will said that Trump’s post-presidential career as an influence over the Republican Party is losing steam and described the former president as “a stray orange hair to be flicked off from the nation’s sleeve.”
Will cited Trump’s endorsement of former Georgia GOP Senator David Perdue in the gubernatorial race against incumbent Brian Kemp as an example. Trump convinced Perdue to run in the state’s gubernatorial races, endorsing the former senator. Kemp drew the ire of the former president for refusing to decertify the state’s election results.
In a poll in February, Kemp led by 10 points against Perdue.