Stephen Colbert put former national security adviser John Bolton on the spot over his all-too-late realization that President Donald Trump represents a danger to the country.
“What I thought in 2016 was, we at least have to try it out,” Bolton, a longtime Republican foreign policy apparatchik, told Colbert. “So I voted for Trump.”
Colbert found that answer “exasperating.”
“There is absolutely nothing that Donald Trump has done that is surprising to me,” Colbert said, adding:
“My rule is: Everything you think about Donald Trump is probably true, because he’s not deep enough to get your socks wet in. He’s incredibly readable, that’s why when he ran casinos, the house lost.”
Bolton said he at first didn’t believe Trump was as bad as people were saying.
“But you’re an international negotiator. How could you be naive?” Colbert said. “You’ve dealt with the worst people in the world.”
“You’ve really insulted me now by calling me naive,” Bolton said, although he was smiling at the time. He said he thought it would be possible to work with Trump, and for Trump to learn about complex foreign policy issues such as arms control.
“As I detail in the book, that turned out not to be true,” he confessed.
See more of the interview below: