John Bolton, a former national security adviser who worked for past President Donald Trump, referred to Trump as an “old and worn” candidate while encouraging the Republican Party to look for a “new face.” Bolton served under Trump while Trump was in office.
These remarks were made by Bolton, who formerly held the position of United States Special envoy during the administration of prior President George W. Bush. They were included in an interview with the Guardian that was published on Saturday.
The veteran government official told the outlet that there were “a lot of reasons” for Republicans to reject Trump as their candidate for president in 2024, citing the losses suffered by the Republican Party in the midterm elections earlier this month as evidence that voters had had enough of Trump “switched off their brains with Trump’s election.”
“Even if they liked his manner, adored his strategy, like his policies, and loved everything there is about him, they wouldn’t want to lose,” Bolton said. “They would not want to lose even though they loved everything about him.”
“The panic is, given the outcome on [November 8], that even if he won the nomination, not only will he lose the election, but he’d take an awful lot of Republican presidential candidates down with him,” he added.
Trump made the announcement of his candidacy for the White House in 2024 in the days after the failure of pollsters to forecast a “red wave,” which caused analysts on both sides of the aisle to see him as a less formidable contender. However, according to a number of commentators, if Trump had delayed the start of his campaign, it would have brought about an even more significant decline in his political status.
When Bolton was asked about the political strength of the former president, he referred to Trump as a “political liability” and said that he only had an impact in Republican primary campaigns.
In the general election, “relying on that support or trumpeting oneself as the Trump-endorsed person is deadly,” he added. “Therefore, if you really want to be successful in winning votes, Trump isn’t the solution.”
Even this impact, according to Bolton’s assertions, was declining among Republican voters. The prominent Republican figure said that he had performed his own polls and discovered that Trump’s influence on those who identify with the Republican Party was weakening with time.
When asked about potential replacements for Trump inside the Republican Party, Bolton mentioned Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who is now being positioned as a competitor to the outgoing president after his landslide victory earlier this month. He made the case that DeSantis has the potential to become the new public face that the GOP wants.