Trump rips ‘Mr. Tough Guy’ John Bolton over North Korea, Iraq

President Trump on Wednesday ripped his ex-national security adviser John Bolton, calling him “Mr. Tough Guy” and asserting that he’d damaged his effort to cut a nuke deal with Kim Jong Un.

“John wasn’t in line with what we were doing and actually in some cases he thought it was too tough what we were doing,” he said.

“Mr. Tough Guy, you know, you had to go into Iraq. Going into Iraq was something he felt very strongly about,” the president told reporters after a White House meeting on vaping.

Bolton was an enthusiastic backer of both Iraq wars, which the president has said he opposed.

The president also excoriated Bolton, his third national security adviser in as many years, for once suggesting that the US look to “the Libyan model” as a way to get the North Korean dictator to play ball.

Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi gave up much of his arsenal and let weapons inspectors into his country — but was later killed during the Arab Spring uprisings that were backed by the US.

Trump said the “Libyan model” remark was “not a good statement to make” because it angered Kim, whom Trump refers to as a “friend.”

“As soon as he mentioned that, the Libyan model, what a disaster. Take a look at what happened to Gadaffi,” Trump said.

“I don’t blame Kim Jong Un for what he said after that. And he wanted nothing to do with John Bolton. And that’s not a question of being tough. That’s a question of being not smart to say something like that. And it set us back,” the president continued.

But the commander in chief also had a few kind words for Bolton.

“He’s somebody that I actually had a very good relationship with, but he wasn’t getting along with people in the administration that I consider very important,” he said.

“So, John is somebody that I actually got along with very well. He made some very big mistakes.”

And he repeated his contention that he had asked for Bolton’s resignation Monday night and that the 70-year-old hawk complied a day later.

Bolton offered a different version, saying he offered to resign and then decided to quit.

Trump named Deputy National Security Adviser Charles Kupperman to serve in an acting basis, but said he had five other candidates in mind for the post.

“Well I have five people that want it very much. A lot more than that would like to have it. But there are five people I consider very highly qualified, good people I’ve gotten to know over the last three years and we’ll be announcing somebody next week, but we have some very highly qualified people,” he said.

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