Trump Could Use Hegseth As ‘Scapegoat’ Following Midterm ‘Humiliation’ | John Bolton

I think we're still not seeing the full Donald Trump reaction to the defeat. I think he was uncharacteristically subdued last night as the results were coming in. As the full impact of this really humiliation for him, this election is a direct referendum on his presidency and a stinging rejection. That, of course, will not be his responsibility. It'll be somebody else's fault. And Pete Hegseth could be the first person to On that list of who is really responsible. You're listening to Drive on Times Radio, coming to you live from Washington, D.C. on the day after what were a truly remarkable set of midterm election results. The political map of America over the course of hours of results rolling in thick and fast went from red to very substantially bright blue. As the Democratic Party seized states, seized Senate seats, seized seats in the congressional districts of the House of Representatives. Just moments ago, the news came in that in the state of Michigan, the battleground state of Michigan, the Democrats have taken another congressional seat in the 10th district. It was a pattern of the night. And we're looking today at what just happened in these elections. Why did it happen? What might it mean? And just a moment or two ago here on the program, we had the news, the really rather startling news that J.D. Vance, Donald Trump's vice president, had given a list of the reasons the Democrats took such a beating. Top of that list was the war against Iran and the top demand, the way back to some sort of stability and regaining ground was ending that war, said J.D. Vance. So a perfect time to get the views of a very prominent political player and pundit. It's John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump in his first term and former Ambassador of the United States. Ambassador, good to have you here. Glad to be with you. Can I get your view straight away on what we're just hearing, the line just breaking in the Times? We have Larissa Brown, who was our defence editor in the Times, quoting senior military sources, saying, and I'm quoting, Hegseth's days are numbered. The defence secretary on that account is on his way out. And the problem, of course, in the background was the Iran war. Do give me your thoughts. Well, it's possible that Trump will fire Hegseth in order to make him a scapegoat. It's possible that Hegseth could be impeached. Even in this lame duck Congress, an outgoing Republican has a resolution of impeachment already filed. Or it's possible Hegseth would stay to fight it out. I think we're still not seeing the full Donald Trump reaction. uh to the defeat. I think he was uncharacteristically subdued last night as the results were coming in as as the full impact of this really humiliation for him this this election is a direct referendum on his presidency and a stinging rejection that of course will not be his responsibility it'll be somebody else's fault and Pete Hegseth could be the first person to uh on that list of uh who was really responsible. Well, as someone, Ambassador, who worked very, very closely to Donald Trump, I'm really interested to hear more of your assessment of how the president may react to the setback or the setbacks of yesterday. But before we go there, on Pete Hegseth, what are your thoughts on him and the idea of him being a candidate for being sacked or a scapegoat, as you say? I remember a previous conversation we had on the subject of Pete Hegseth, Ambassador. You described him as a child. Yeah, look, I think he's in a position way above what he should be. He doesn't fully understand what it means to be Secretary of Defense. He's been a complete yes man for Trump over the course of the administration, whether it's on Iran, whether it's on the war against drugs they've declared coming from South America, on how to deal with the military, and what are essentially domestic police disputes, that sort of thing. So I think he has next to no support on the Republican side. And I think he's a very convenient target for the Democrats. Trump has withstood a lot of calls from Republicans in Congress to fire him. He hasn't done that yet. Maybe he figures this may be the moment to do it, but I think these are just among the many decisions swirling around in Trump's head. He doesn't have a game plan ahead of him. He's going to make it up on a day-by-day basis. Hegseth may be just the first of many decisions, but he doesn't have it planned out, that's for sure. So here we have it stated by the vice president, but you didn't need the vice president's intervention to know that an awful lot of American voters were very unhappy about the course of the Iran war. It's the idea of heaping blame on the on the Republican side and blaming President Trump for his handling of that war. Is that in any way deserved in your view? Because I know, of course, you to be something of a hawk, if I could put it that way, when it came to Iran. Well, the most startling thing about Vance's statement is he's separating himself from Trump. He's saying, I know the MAGA base better than Trump does, and the war was a mistake. You know, in Britain you have this concept of cabinet responsibility, so everybody has to stick with the team, or if they don't want to, they can resign. The president's position is he supports the war. Vance said something really fairly remarkable in these remarks. He said, saying war was the cause of loss, he said, so if you'd like to argue it was worth it that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so. I mean, that's a direct challenge to Trump. The fact is that the war was a huge surprise to a key element of the MAGA base, which Vance needs for the 2028 nomination. But that core of the MAGA base is a tiny sliver of the Republican Party, the isolationist sliver of the Republican Party. And it may have shocked them. It didn't shock so many others. And let's be clear, the concern about the war is not with the war as such. It's with the effect of the war on the price of gasoline for American consumers, which is a real and legitimate issue. Not for Donald Trump, though. He has defended as recently as last night, the decision to go to war. The fact that we're in a real quandary what to do has more to do with the way Trump has mishandled the statement of his objectives in the war and how we're to go about it than any anti-war sentiment on the part of the population. So Vance is drawing a very clear line here between himself and Trump. It's going to be fascinating to see how this works out. It's fair to say, then, you believe that this is about J.D. Vance just paving his way to a run at the nomination for president in 2028. An effort, by the way, you take the view, would be entirely futile. Well, I think he's in a very difficult position to try and tell Trump that he knows the base better than he does and to try and separate himself from Trump as a sitting vice president. This is very treacherous territory. Vice presidents have a tough job. There's no doubt about it. They're not president. They don't make the final decisions. They've got to disagree with a lot of what's going on. But the corollary of that is they have to accept it. And the The benefit of accepting it is they're the number two in line for the job if anything happens to the president. Vance is trying to have it both ways with this, that I'm vice president, I'm part of the Trump team, except I disagree with him on a pretty fundamental issue here. I think it's going to be very unlikely that Trump simply accepts this. Ambassador John Bolton, always a pleasure to get your thoughts. Thank you for coming on the program this afternoon.