John Bolton: Door Still Open for Presidential Run in 2016

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, says he is continuing to mull a run for the Republican presidential in 2016.

"[The door is not] closed . . . What I'm doing now is focusing on the 2014 House and Senate elections," Bolton told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"I want to see what happens, I want to see who else is out there, I want to see if there are candidates who can seriously address national security issues," he said Tuesday.

Bolton is not impressed with President Barack Obama's handling of national security. Nor does he believe the commander in chief's foreign policy has been effective, particularly in the Middle East and Russia.

"We've elected a president back in 2008 who has zero national security experience," Bolton said.

"Sadly, he demonstrates that he hasn't learned even from on-the-job training. We cannot risk that again."

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Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said the United States needs a better Russia reset in light of the crisis in the Ukraine.

While Vice President Joe Biden is in Ukraine this week, offering aid to Ukraine and threatening more sanctions against Russia for its military aggression, Bolton isn't hopeful.

"The administration lives in a world of rhetoric rather than a world of action, so Joe Biden goes to Kiev as a show of political support for the Ukrainian government but he doesn't bring anything with him," he said.

"The headline this morning was that we had promised $50 million dollars of aid. This is peanuts compared to the $20, $30, $40 billion dollars that Ukraine already owes Russia for the oil and gas that Russia supplies, 80 percent of Ukraine's supply.

"We're playing with nickels and dimes and the Russians are playing with really big numbers, and so when Putin and the Russians see this, and in fact when the Ukrainian see it, when our allies in Europe see it, they know the administration is not serious."

The United States' lack of leadership in confronting Russian President Vladimir Putin is also making NATO's three Baltic republic members, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, "extremely nervous."

"Putin looking at the weak response by NATO, by its leader of the United States, may well conclude . . . he's got a chance to drive a stake through the heart of NATO," Bolton said.

"[It's] something he could not have believed was possible when he started out trying to regain control over Ukraine . . . which has been opened up to him by the mistakes that Obama has made."

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