Bolton Asked About Book In Which Trump Reportedly Said, ‘Hopefully Covid Takes Out John’

Former Trump national security advisor John Bolton spoke to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday night about new revelations that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have stayed in touch since he left the Whtie House.

“I have to ask you about this, ambassador, because in this book from Bob Woodward , he reveals that Trump sent Putin Covid tests at the height of the pandemic. Putin didn’t want anyone to know about it,” Collins said at one point during the discussion, adding:

According to this, he said, ‘Don’t tell them, but it’s worse for you than it is for me. Which made me think about this book that Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, The Washington Post , wrote about the pandemic, where they quoted Trump at one point saying that he hoped that you would, you would die from Covid.

Essentially, he was worried about another aide getting it. And then he said, quote, according to this book, ‘Hopefully Covid takes out John,’ referring to you. I mean, in light of the fact that he was sending Covid tests to Putin, how do you read that now?

“Well, I’m grateful that he was thinking about me, what can I say, during a crisis like Covid. Well, look, this is pure Trump that people are getting now. And, you know, interestingly, Dmitry Peskov, who is long time Vladimir Putin spokesman, confirmed that Trump and Putin had had that conversation about or that Trump had given the Covid test even as the Trump campaign was denying anything about it,” Bolton replied, adding:

So the Russians, in effect, have undercut Trump’s effort to distance himself from Russia. This is the way Trump reacts to these strong authoritarian leaders. I can’t analyze it psychologically, but he just likes being a big guy with big guys. They don’t have to deal with, you know, independent legislatures and judiciaries and due process and all that. Just do what they want to do. That’s what he wants to do to.

During the interview, Bolton also warned that Trump will likely withdraw from NATO. “For Republicans who believe that Trump will be OK in a second term — that he won‘t ditch support for Ukraine, that he won‘t withdraw from NATO, that he won‘t interpret the treaty of Washington in a way that makes it wholly useless, … go ahead and vote for Trump if you want, but for goodness stakes do it with your eyes open,” Bolton said , concluding, “The odds that he will withdraw from NATO are very high.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.