John Bolton ‘going to seriously consider’ challenging Trump

Former national security adviser John Bolton said Monday that he’ll “seriously consider” challenging former President Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2024 if other potential candidates don’t step in to decry his former boss and stop him from taking office again. 

“We’ve got perhaps a dozen or more potential presidential candidates looking to 2024. I think every one of them, before they declare their candidacy, should say, ‘Donald Trump was wrong. We repudiate him. He doesn’t belong in the Republican Party,'” Bolton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press NOW.”

“And, honestly, if they don’t, there’s one thing that would get me to get into the presidential race, which I looked at in previous elections. It would be to make it clear to the people of this country that Donald Trump is unacceptable as the Republican nominee,” he added.

Bolton, who served in the Trump White House from 2018 to 2019 after previously serving as United Nations ambassador under former President George W. Bush, knocked Trump over his recent calls for the “termination” of the Constitution to restore him to power and said he wants to see “Shermanesque statements” from all the potential candidates denouncing Trump and his comments. 

“If I don’t see that, I’m going to seriously consider getting in,” Bolton said. 

Trump on Friday argued in a Truth Social post that the fraud he claims occurred during the 2020 presidential election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” 

The former president tried to walk back his comments after they were met with backlash but said that “if an election is irrefutably fraudulent, it should go to the rightful winner or, at a minimum, be redone. Where open and blatant fraud is involved, there should be no time limit for change!”

The White House on Monday called on congressional Republicans to reaffirm their commitment to the Constitution and reject the comments from the former commander in chief.

“I think the voters, the Republican voters, people who choose the Republican nominee, nearly 95 percent disagree that Donald Trump is more important than the Constitution. I’m afraid there’s some that would stick with Trump on this. What does a candidate have to lose by appealing to 95 percent of the base of the Republican Party?” Bolton said on Monday. 

“I actually think most Republican elected officials in Washington disagree with Trump on this, but they’re intimidated,” he added.