- Trump's former national security advisor said the former president wouldn't run in 2024.
- He said Trump would continue teasing the prospect of a run to keep attention on himself.
Bolton said Wednesday that he believed Trump would continue to tease the prospect of a run but would not ultimately seek the Republican nomination.
"I don't think Trump will run for the presidency in 2024," Bolton told Robert Peston, an anchor on Britain's ITV network.
"I think he knows deep inside, although he will never admit it, he did lose in 2020 and very much fears losing in 2024 because if he hates anything in the world, he hates being called a loser."
Bolton added later: "I think he will talk about running incessantly until the very last moment because if he were ever to say he was not going to be a candidate, it would turn the spotlight off, and he doesn't like that either."
-Peston (@itvpeston) November 10, 2021
Trump has repeatedly indicated that he is considering another run for office in 2024, and he still commands huge influence over the Republican Party.
He has continued to raise millions of dollars a year from supporters for his political future despite having made no formal declaration that he intends to run, CNN reported.
Trump sacked Bolton as his national security advisor in September 2019 after a 17-month tenure, and Bolton has been highly critical of him since, including in his book "The Room Where It Happened."
Bolton's book, published last year, included claims that Trump had little grasp of foreign-policy issues and had pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him with the 2020 election.
Trump called Bolton's book "a compilation of lies and made up stories, all intended to make me look bad," and subsequently called him "one of the dumbest people in Washington."