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Bolton’s top Trump bombshells

June 18, 2020
QuickTake
Bloomberg

Greetings, QuickTake readers! In this edition: Atlanta cop charged with murder of Rayshard Brooks, a second pandemic emerges in South Africa, and Boston Dynamics' futuristic (and creepy) robot dog can now be yours.

John Bolton's book of bombshells

Ex-National Security Adviser John Bolton's forthcoming tell-all paints an unflattering picture of President Trump's leadership and accuses him of endangering the nation to be re-elected. "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," due out June 23, has been billed by publisher Simon & Schuster as "the book Donald Trump doesn't want you to read."

The Trump administration on Tuesday sought an emergency restraining order to stop its publication and a preliminary injunction to block sales, alleging it contains classified information that'd endanger national security. Bolton's book, which is already a best-seller on Amazon, is one of more than 20 written by ex-officials attempting to tell the inside story of Trump's White House—but Bolton is the highest-ranking one so far.

The most damning revelations:

  • Trump "pleaded" with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to "ensure he'd win" re-election buy buying more U.S. farm products and at one point called him "the greatest leader in Chinese history."
  • Trump was uninterested in defending Taiwan or Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters and told Xi that building prison camps for thousands of Uighur Muslims was "exactly the right thing to do."
  • Trump's foreign policy rested on political gain. "I am hard-pressed to identify any decision that wasn't driven by re-election calculations," Bolton wrote. "The Trump presidency is grounded in Trump."
  • Democrats committed "impeachment malpractice" for focusing solely on Ukraine and not digging into how Trump intervened in probes of Turkey's Halkbank and China's ZTE to avoid upsetting those leaders.
  • Trump's lack of knowledge, exhibited by him asking if Finland was part of Russia and if the U.K. was a nuclear power, made him weak to Vladimir Putin, who Bolton wrote, "can play Trump like a fiddle."

$ignificant figures

117,129. The number of Americans who've died from coronavirus as of Wednesday—more than the 116,708 who died during World War I—as Arizona, Florida, and Texas set new records for daily Covid-19 cases.

$1,161,200. The cost of a top-tier RNC package offered to Trump donors, which buys premier access to the Jacksonville arena and "special Trump Victory hospitality," including priority seating and a behind-the-scenes tour.

1,700. The number of pages in an NTSB report of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, which said the pilot radioed he was "climbing to 4,000 feet" to get above fog when they were actually plunging toward a hillside.

Highly quotable

"When provoked, India will give an appropriate answer." PM Narendra Modi said he "wants peace" but vowed to defend the country's borders in his first statement since 20 troops died in clashes with China.

"He did not pose a threat." Prosecutors charged Garrett Rolfe, the ex-Atlanta cop who shot and killed Rayshard Brooks, with felony murder and 10 other offenses. Devin Brosnan was charged with aggravated assault.

"I am asking you to help us." Philonise Floyd asked the Human Rights Council to investigate recent U.S. police killings, saying, "when people protest the treatment of black people in America they are silenced."

This is not normal

Two pandemics. Violence against women and children in South Africa has risen sharply since alcohol sales resumed on June 1, resulting in 21 deaths, President Cyril Ramaphosa said as he further eased restrictions.

The future is now

Own your own. Boston Dynamics started selling online its four-legged Spot robots that can walk, climb stairs, and open doors for $75,000 each—as long as buyers agree not to arm them or use them as weapons.

What's good

Red-letter day. Juneteenth is nearing national holiday status after New York gave state workers the day off and as companies and members of Congress aim to officially observe the end of American slavery June 19.

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BTW: Ella Jones was sworn in as the first black mayor of Ferguson, Missouri, a town synonymous with Black Lives Matter ever since the police shooting of Michael Brown. See it happen.

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Thanks for reading!
-Andrew Mach

 

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