John Bolton slammed Trump's 'wasted two years' trying to denuclearize North Korea in his first public speech since the impeachment trial
- Former National Security Advisor John Bolton slammed President Donald Trump's continuous quest for North Korean denuclearization in a Monday speech at Duke University.
- Bolton, known for his hawkish foreign policy, said there was "not a single piece of evidence that the government of North Korea intends to give up nuclear weapons."
- Bolton also warned that North Korea was nearing the capability to drop a nuclear weapon on a US city, and slammed Trump's one-on-one meetings with leader Kim Jong Un as ineffective.
- This was his first public appearance since the start of Trump's impeachment trial, where Republican senators overwhelmingly refused to hear his testimony.
- Bolton also teased excerpts of his upcoming book, which is reported to contain damaging information on Trump's Ukraine dealings.
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Former National Security Advisor John Bolton has slammed President Donald Trump's "failed" efforts to denuclearize North Korea in his first public appearance since the impeachment trial, where Republican senators refused to let him testify.
In a Monday speech to students at Duke University, Bolton said Trump's attempts to get North Korea to ditch their nuclear weapons program was "going to fail" and that there was "not a single piece of evidence that the government of North Korea intends to give up nuclear weapons," according to The Washington Post.
"This idea that they can be coaxed into giving up … their nuclear program was flawed from the start," Bolton said, according to The Post.
Bolton, known for his hawkish stance on foreign policy, also criticized Trump's attempts at one-on-one diplomacy with Kim. The two leaders have held a series of high-profile meetings on neutral territory over the past two years, but have moved little on denuclearization.
"That's failed, too, and it was perfectly evident it was going to fail," he said, referring to Trump and Kim's meetings, according to The Atlantic. He concluded that those talks were a "wasted two years."
Bolton said that Kim was "jiving the Americans" and that, instead of getting closer to denuclearization, North Korea was getting closer to building a nuclear bomb that could target US cities, according to The Post.
"North Korea in the last 40 years has on four separate, memorable occasions publicly committed to get rid of nuclear weapons and just never seems to get around to doing it," he said, according to The Duke Chronicle.
Bolton teased his new book
The Monday speech was Bolton's first public appearance the beginning of Trump's impeachment proceedings by the House and Senate.
The Senate voted, largely on party lines, to acquit Trump on February 5. Senate Republicans refused to hear Bolton's testimony after The New York Times reported that his upcoming book contained damaging information on Trump's dealings in Ukraine, and after he hinted that he would testify if subpoenaed.
During the Q&A section of his Monday talk, Bolton was pressed to update attendees on his highly-anticipated book, which is due to be released on March 17 but is currently under review by the National Security Council.
Extracts of the book, seen in advance by The New York Times, have suggested that Bolton will accuse Trump of directly soliciting a so-called quid-pro-quo deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to Bolton, Trump said he would withhold millions in military aid in exchange for an investigation into his Democratic rivals, according to The Times.
When asked about the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky - which had prompted House Democrats to launch Trump's impeachment inquiry - Bolton simply said: "You'll love chapter 14."
The book is currently under review by the National Security Council, where he once worked, before it can be published.
On January 23, the White House wrote to Bolton's lawyer saying "the book appears to contain significant amounts of classified information. It also appears that some of this classified information is at the TOP SECRET level."
On Monday, Bolton said he hopes his new book is not censored over national-security concerns.
"This is an effort to write history, and I did it the best I can," Bolton said. "We'll have to see what comes out of the censorship."
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