John Bolton who managed NOT to be with Trump when he had his kissy face with Kim Jung Un, is trying to downplay that Trump is an unmoored free agent setting national policy so he can claim to be a world peacemaker in the campaign.We know that John Bolton Bolton has been a strong advocate within the West Wing to continue the administration’s drive for full denuclearization within North
Now he is being forced to back down from this because Trump gave in to Kin Jung Un in their spur of the moment meeting (maybe, there are reports it was planned in advance).
Consider:
John Bolton shoots down report of 'nuclear freeze' with North Korea
White House National Security Adviser John Bolton on Monday dismissed reports that the administration is considering agreeing to a “freeze” of North Korea’s nuclear weapons arsenal as opposed to a more comprehensive denuclearization pact.
Prior to President Donald Trump’s meeting Sunday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — where Trump became the first sitting commander-in-chief to step into the isolated, communist state — the New York Times reported that administration officials had been mulling a deal with Pyongyang to halt production of new nuclear material as a way to kickstart another round of talks with Kim’s regime.
But the head of Trump's National Security Council slammed the Times story, writing online that “there should be consequences” for its publishing. Bolton did not specify whether it was the Times or whoever its source was that should face those penalties.
Of course the NY Tines story that stared this was:
In New Talks, U.S. May Settle for a Nuclear Freeze by North Korea (not behind paywall)
The article refers to John Bolton only once:
The administration still insists in public and in private that its goals remain full denuclearization. But recognizing that its maximalist demand for the near-term surrender of Mr. Kim’s cherished nuclear program is going nowhere, it is weighing a new approach that would begin with a significant — but limited — first step.
American negotiators would seek to expand on Mr. Kim’s offer in Hanoi in February to give up the country’s main nuclear-fuel production site, at Yongbyon, in return for the most onerous sanctions against the country being lifted. Mr. Trump, under pressure from his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, rejected that proposal, because so much of the North’s capability now lies outside the vast Yongbyon complex.
We know that Trump viscerally hates being told what to do. He can’t abide when someone purports to know more than he does.
I think it is telling that Mike Pompeo went to Korea and that this means he will be staying. And faux diplomate Ivanka probably would encourage her daddy to eliminate this pest who she probably sees as a threat to her power. (see Ivanka’s North Korea Photobombs Perplex White House Officials in Daily Beast). To paraphrase Henry II : will no one rid me of this turbulent pest?
Bolton found it necessary to be in Mongolia Vanity Fair and Ivanka took his place as the national security advisor (without portfolio) with Daddio. (Check out this photo of the primary daughter playing with her hair.)
I am sure John Bolton does not take kindly to taking orders, or being diminished by someone he know more than, and playing not even second fiddle to a former fashionista.
I am sure he would agree with Rex Tillerson who famously and accurately said Trump was a moron and almost resigned. Article in Axios
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