On Tuesday, CNN's Anderson Cooper laid into President Donald Trump for his ongoing friendliness with North Korea and his unwillingness to listen to his national security advisers — not even John Bolton, who is enraged that Trump doesn't share his hawkish stance.
"The president went on to rhapsodize about all the great beachfront property there is in North Korea, and spoke of Kim Jong-un as if he was another real estate tycoon, not a bloodthirsty dictator," said Cooper. "A view Bolton clearly does not share. Never has, and the two differ on Iran, as well, with the president talking tough in public, but counseling restraint behind closed doors."
This, Cooper noted, "is certainly his prerogative as chief executive. It should also be said that presidents often see things differently from their national security advisers, sometimes even hiring them to play devil's advocate. That said, the president has now hired three of them. He's seen Secretaries of State, Defense, and U.N. Ambassadors come and go."
"He's changed course so many times on so many issues, whether it's North Korea, Iran, pulling out of Syria, threatening to leave NATO, that perhaps it's not really possible to say that he and ambassador Bolton are truly at odds on foreign policy, because he so far has no real consistent foreign policy to be at odds with, other than a preference for appeasing dictators," Cooper added. "That's a question, at least. The other, of course, is what exactly did the president think he was getting in John Bolton, who's been nothing if not consistent, and consistently hawkish over the years."
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