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Former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s response to Donald Trump’s rambling press conference on Thursday could be summarized in one sentence: “Trump can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false.”
Bolton, who served in the Trump administration, said the former president consistently told falsehoods throughout the nearly hour-long “general news conference” but said it was not deliberate lying, rather that Trump espoused what he believes in his mind.
“In his mind, the truth is whatever he wants it to be and that’s what you heard today,” Bolton told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins on Thursday evening.
Hours early, Trump held a televised press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in which he confirmed he would debate Vice President Kamala Harris on September 4th, and suggested two other debate days.
But the former president spent most of the speech complaining about Harris and the Democrats as a whole.
He falsely stated Harris may have violated the Constitution by replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.
Trump complained that the media was purposefully diminishing the size of his rally crowds and falsely claimed the same, if not more, people attended his January 6, 2021 rally than Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech.
The former president likely grossly inflated the number of migrants crossing the border and blamed Harris for it, claiming she was made the “border czar” – Harris was only tasked with determining the root causes of migration in Central American countries.
“He makes up what he wants to say at any given time,” Bolton said.
“It’s another demonstration of how little of American history he knows. Whatever he did know he has disregarded,” he said.
Bolton worked in the White House between April 2018 and September 2019. He left on acrimonious terms after several disagreements with the president on foreign policy matters regarding North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan.
Since then, he has denounced the former president, claiming he is “not fit” to be president. Bolton publicly stated he would not vote for Trump in 2024.
The former National Security Advisor also raised concerns on Thursday evening that Trump’s rhetoric about election integrity is setting up another scenario for the former president to decry election results should he lose come November.
“Trump never loses,” Bolton said. “If he’s not declared the winner of 2024, as in 2020, it must be because he was treated unfairly, yet again, it was stolen, yet again.”
