President Donald Trump will not willingly leave the presidency if he loses the election next month, former White House national security adviser John Bolton told CNN over the weekend.
"Let's be clear, Trump will not leave graciously if he loses," Bolton said. "Whether he carries it to the extreme, I don't think we know. I think it is very troubling that he has said, 'I can't lose unless there's fraud.' Of course he can lose in an honest election."
Bolton stressed that if Trump does resist peacefully leaving the White House, "it is up to Republicans, not Democrats, to say 'this is on us. He's got to go.'"
Bolton has harshly criticized Trump since leaving the administration. The president has frequently brushed aside criticism from Bolton as that of a disgruntled former staff member.
He said that for the public, "the coronavirus crisis is probably the best example ... for why Trump is not fit to be president. ... He has never had a strategy, he has never had a clue how he expected to get through this, he's proceeded on an ad-hoc fashion. He has the attention span of a fruit fly."
Bolton said he expects Trump will be "utterly unrestricted" if he wins a second term and that he already feels empowered by the fact that he survived impeachment over the Ukraine scandal.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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