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TexasTowelie

(112,288 posts)
Fri May 19, 2023, 05:23 PM May 2023

Former Adviser Says World Leaders Viewed Trump As A 'Laughing Fool' - Ring of Fire



If you thought that opinions of Donald Trump were bad in the United States, just wait until you found out what the rest of the world thought of him. According to former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, world leaders viewed Donald Trump as nothing more than a "laughing fool" who had no idea what he was doing. And they weren't wrong - Trump took the international reputation of the United States back down to levels we hadn't seen since the Bush administration, and that is always a bad thing for America. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.


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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump loves to claim that he was beloved by foreign leaders, that he got along so well with murderous dictators across the globe. And by God everybody loved him and he was a, a tough negotiator with those other foreign leaders and made him pay into NATO for the first time, even though it technically is not true. But according to Donald Trump's former National Security advisor, the war monger, John Bolton, nothing could be further from the truth. During an interview with CNN this week, Bolton said that these world leaders did not look up to Trump. They did not admire or respect him. They instead viewed him as a laughing fool. Here is the full context and quote of what John Bolton said. This is the question he was asked by CNN anchor Caitlin Collins. She said, you once said that he, Donald Trump barely knew where Ukraine was. And his notion that one thing he repeated that night as well as is he said if he was in office, that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine.

So John Bolton responds and says, yeah, Trump has this impression that foreign leaders, especially adversaries, hold him in high regard, that he's got a good relationship with Xi Jinping, with Vladimir Putin. Kim Jong on. I believe they think he's a laughing fool, and the idea that somehow his presence in office would've deterred Putin as flatly wrong. If anything, if Trump had won a second term and done what I think he intended to do, which is get outta nato, Putin would've just waited and let him do it. And even the weakening of NATO would've made it a lot easier for the Russians to have prevailed. I think it's virtually treasonous for the President, and this is a separate topic. I think it's virtually treasonous for the President to say he would pardon people who were trying to disrupt the work of Congress. It's another example why he's not fit to be president. If anybody wants to know what a Trump administration would look like, if he's pardoning the people who rioted on January 6th, that's all you need to know.

So he's not fit to be president. Foreign leaders view him as a laughing fool. He may pull the United States out of nato. This guy is a massive liability to the entire country. And what is interesting about this is during the Obama years, we did see a massive rebound in America's image abroad. Foreign leaders, foreign countries, reported having more respect for the United States. Now, I understand Obama's foreign policy was not very good, but he also wasn't a horrible s o B that was going around lying to these people all over the world. We had seen that in the prior administration, the Bush administration, when Bush sent Colin Powell to the United Nations to lie to their faces, to get them to support an invasion of Iraq.

All of those lies told by that Bush administration weakened America's standing abroad. It weakened our relationships with our allies, allies who would be less likely in the future to come to our aid if we asked them because we had lied them into a war. That changed with Obama, and I think Obama did get a pass for a lot of the bad foreign policy decisions he made, because a lot of people, including around the world, were just relieved. It wasn't George W. Bush anymore. Donald Trump came in, changed all that back the other way. We need those allies.
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Former Adviser Says World Leaders Viewed Trump As A 'Laughing Fool' - Ring of Fire (Original Post) TexasTowelie May 2023 OP
Lol Faux pas May 2023 #1
Without looking up any sources... GopherGal May 2023 #3
... Faux pas May 2023 #4
The world also had thoughts about the Trump spawn. keithbvadu2 May 2023 #2

GopherGal

(2,009 posts)
3. Without looking up any sources...
Fri May 19, 2023, 07:46 PM
May 2023

my memory is that other nations' opinions of TFG were generally that he was a fool, and could be won over by a few ego strokes/personal compliments/favors while being hornswoggled without him being any the wiser. Let Mr Big Shot play his stupid handshake-dominance games while you're picking his pocket.

Faux pas

(14,684 posts)
4. ...
Fri May 19, 2023, 07:58 PM
May 2023

You are right about all of that. I'm just used to picturing him as the picker and not the pickee

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