The limits of his knowledge

Jun 17th, 2020 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Josh Dawsey at the Post has been reading Bolton’s book.

He tried the same move on China as he tried on Ukraine.

During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China critics in the United States. But Bolton writes in a book scheduled to be released next week that “Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats.

“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes. “He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.”…

The episode described by Bolton in his book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” bears striking similarities to the actions that resulted in Trump’s impeachment after he sought to pressure the Ukrainian president to help dig up dirt on Democratic rival Joe Biden in exchange for military assistance.

So we can assume he’s done it to everyone, because he’s far too stupid to figure out that different heads of state have different interests, and just assumes they will all do what he asks if he bullies or pleads hard enough.

The request for electoral assistance from Xi is just one of many instances described by Bolton in which Trump seeks favors or approval from authoritarian leaders. Many of those same leaders were also happy to take advantage of the U.S. president and attempt to manipulate him, Bolton writes, often through simplistic appeals to his various obsessions.

Yeah no shit. It’s not as if he doesn’t advertise how stupid he is.

Bolton recounts numerous private conversations Trump had with other leaders that revealed the limits of his knowledge. He recalls Trump asking Kelly if the nation of Finland is part of Russia. In a meeting with then-British Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018, a British official referred to the UK as a “nuclear power,” and Trump interjects: “Oh, are you a nuclear power?” Bolton adds that he could tell the question about Britain, which has long maintained a nuclear arsenal, “was not intended as a joke.”

If only that were surprising. It’s not surprising in the least. He’s made it entirely clear that he knows nothing. This is a man who insists on referring to one of his [shudder] predecessors as “Honest Abe.”

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