After casually admitting on CNN that he had helped plan foreign coups d’etat Tuesday night, former National Security Adviser John Bolton blasted critics of his remarks as “snowflakes” who simply “don’t understand what you need to do to protect” the American people and the country’s interests.
Bolton, who most recently served as an adviser under President Donald J. Trump, made his comments during an appearance on Newsmax’s “John Bachman Now” on Thursday afternoon after anchor Bianca de la Garza asked him about the controversy created by his comments.
“Ambassador, I do have to ask you also — your comment yesterday on CNN about coups and orchestrating them,” de la Garza said. “It’s getting a lot of play, as you know. What would you like to say to that? Obviously, the U.S. is a world superpower, and were you surprised that some of the pickup there was about your talk, you know obviously, you’ve written a lot about Venezuela in your book?”
“Well, I think there are a lot of snowflakes out there that don’t understand what you need to do to protect the United States,” Bolton shot back.
In his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” Bolton claimed that the U.S. allegedly failed to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro due to a series of mistakes made by Trump and his administration.
Bolton refused to go into detail regarding that story but he did send a pointed criticism of American presidents unwilling to partake in heavy-handed tactics overseas.
“I’m not going to get into specifics,” he continued. “I did write about Venezuela in my memoir, and I think that any president that’s not willing to do what it takes to protect the interests of the American people needs to have some counseling.”
On Tuesday, Bolton joined CNN’s “The Lead” to discuss the ongoing January 6 Committee hearings, but Bolton took affront to anchor Jake Tapper’s claim that “one doesn’t have to be brilliant” in order to plan a coup.
“I think it’s also important to understand, while nothing Donald Trump did after the election in connection with the lie about the election fraud, none of it is defensible. None of it is defensible,” Bolton said to Tapper during the interview. “It’s also a mistake, as some people have said, including on the committee, that somehow this was a carefully planned coup d’etat aimed at the Constitution. That’s not the way Donald Trump does things.”
Bolton also claimed that the January 6 riot was not necessarily planned nor an assault on the American form of government.
“He’s — to use a ‘Star Wars’ metaphor — a disturbance in the force,” Bolton continued. “It’s not an attack on our democracy. It’s Donald Trump looking out for Donald Trump. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.”
“I don’t know that I agree with you, to be fair with all due respect,” Tapper rebutted. “One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.”
“I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat, not here, but other places, it takes a lot of work,” Bolton replied. “And that’s not what he did. It was just stumbling around from one idea to another.”
The exchange can be seen here:
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton, casually admitting that he's helped plan coups d'etat … pic.twitter.com/GsMdsrZp6H
— Virginia Kruta (@VAKruta) July 13, 2022
Virginia Kruta contributed to this report.