John Bolton, who was National Security Advisor for former President Donald Trump, confirmed last week that he is throwing his hat into the ring for president in 2024.
Part of his motivation, he made clear, is to prevent his former boss from returning to the Oval Office. Bolton parted ways from Trump and has become a fierce critic of the former president, who has already announced his intention to embark on a third run for the White House.
John Bolton says he's eyeing a 2024 presidential run: report https://t.co/3RBN5ma5Fu pic.twitter.com/vQDEhzSpJx
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) January 7, 2023
The former administration official made his declaration in an interview with “Good Morning Britain.” The program tweeted on Friday morning that “John Bolton has told us that he will run for U.S. president in a bid to stop his former boss from getting the nomination.”
Bolton asserted that he is a legitimate candidate and is not running merely to counter Trump. He said he would never run “as a vanity candidate” and would not declare his candidacy “if I didn’t think I could run seriously.”
Bolton told the British program that the U.S. under his leadership would implement a much stronger foreign policy. He said that Beijing along with Moscow must know “that unprovoked aggression against your neighbors is not something the United States and its allies would tolerate.”
Bolton turned his attention back to Trump, saying that the former president’s Republican Party support “is in terminal decline.”
The now-candidate previously served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and was Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019 before he was fired on Twitter.
Bolton published his controversial memoir in 2020, “The Room Where it Happened.” The Trump administration was unsuccessful in blocking its release.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Bolton said that it is not enough for someone running for president to say they support the Constitution. Rather, he claimed the person must also “say I would oppose people who would undercut it.”
He even referred back to the McCarthy-era 1950s and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Blasting the previous president, Bolton said that when the Constitution is challenged in the way he claimed Trump did, that is “un-American.”
Despite asserting that his candidacy is not due to “vanity,” it is tough to see it as anything but. When a person asks the public for their confidence to lead the nation, it must be based on more than a grudge-fueled desire to block another person’s attempt to be president.
