John Bolton, Donald Trump’s ex-national security adviser, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is still a “dead man walking” in the president’s Cabinet on Thursday after Michael Waltz was ousted from the top national security post.
Bolton — earlier in a CNN appearance — used the phrase to describe Waltz, whose role in inviting a reporter to a Signal chat with Trump officials led the president to nominate him to be his United Nations ambassador instead.
“I think they don’t want to have two go at the same time so I think Hegseth has more time,” said Bolton of the former Fox News host, who shared highly sensitive military plans to the reporter-laden chat and exchanged deets of impending attacks with family members and his attorney in another chat.
Years prior to Bolton being pushed out of Trump’s first administration, he served as U.N. ambassador under former President George W. Bush.
Bolton blasted Vice President JD Vance for referring to Waltz’s U.N. ambassador nomination as a “promotion,” adding that there’s no question that the national security post is more important.
His comments arrive hours after he used a Wall Street Journal op-ed to weigh in on the Waltz move as he declared that “chaos is embedded in Trump’s DNA.”
Later in his CNN appearance, Bolton turned to far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer’s reported role in the firings of several National Security Council members last month.
“If she had any [influence in Waltz’s departure,] this really is the inmates running the asylum,” he said.
Bolton proceeded to slam political analysts who claim that Waltz “had to go” because he “wasn’t in tune” with the president.
“Well, who hired Waltz? I mean, who knows who’s in tune with the president better than the president,” Bolton said.
“This shows Trump has no philosophy, no national security strategy, doesn’t do policy. He hired Waltz and many other people because he expected fealty from them and when Waltz exposed Trump to political liability because of the Signal group chat, that was all Trump needed. That was not sufficient fealty.”
He’d go on to describe Trump’s decision-making as “random neuron flashes,” adding that the president isn’t “playing three-dimensional chess.”
“This is Trump playing regular chess one move at a time and no further ahead than that.”