President Donald Trump made "one of the worst mistakes" of his tenure in picking John Bolton as his national security adviser, former President Jimmy Carter told USA Today.
"Maybe one of the worst mistakes that President Trump has made since he's been in office is his employment of John Bolton, who has been advocating a war with North Korea for a long time and even an attack on Iran, and who has been one of the leading figures on orchestrating the decision to invade Iraq," Carter said, calling the appointment "a disaster for our country."
Bolton, who Trump named last Thursday to replace H.R. McMaster in the key security role, is a hardliner who has advocated a regime change and military force against North Korea. Bolton said Friday that Trump should insist any meetings the president holds with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un must be focused solely on how to eliminate that country's nuclear weapons program as quickly as possible.
Carter, 93, called Bolton a "war-like figure," who backs catastrophic policies and said his "first advice" to the president would be to fire Bolton. He also said to listen closely to the North Koreans.
"What the North Koreans have wanted for a long time is just assurance confirmed by the Six Powers Agreement — with China and Russia and Japan and South Korea and so forth — that the United States will not attack North Korea as long as North Korea stays at peace with its neighbors," he said.
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