Today's Telegraph has published more excerpts from John Bolton's forthcoming book on his experiences as national security adviser to US President Donald Trump, painting an extremely unflattering picture of an unpredictable leader who was deemed irresponsible by administration officials and malleable by foreign leaders, most notably Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Trump's ignorance: "Trump asked ... if Finland was part of Russia. I tried to explain the history but didn't get very far."
On his verbiage: "He [made] ... a fair point, like many points Trump made, important but often overwhelmed by the tsunami of words."
On his inaccuracies: "Trump criticized Jean-Claude Junker [European Commission President] and said ... [that he] sets the NATO budget, although he did not describe how that was accomplished."
On his mistakes on NATO: Trump told world leaders at a summit that, "European countries were not paying their fair share, which should be four percent" - when the real agreement was for two percent. "Trump said US presidents would come and complain, but ... nothing would happen, even though we paid 90 percent" - the real figure was 22 percent.
Bolton described the "stunned reaction in the vast ... chamber," and the subsequent informal discussion when "Trump was bargaining in real time with the other leaders, trapped in a room without their prepared scripts. It was something to see."
And then, after a long day of faux-pas, occasional hilarity, and catastrophes narrowly averted, "Trump tweeted: Great success today at NATO! Billions of additional dollars paid by members since my election. Great spirit!"
More problematic was Trump's inept handling of the Helsinki summit with Russian President Putin when he told reporters at a press conference asking about Russian interference in US politics that: "My [intelligence] people came to me ... they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be ... I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today."
Bolton concluded by noting that, "The next day, the entire senior White House communications team conferred with Trump in the Oval. Still surprised at the negative reaction, [Trump] had reviewed the press-conference transcript and decided he had misspoken. In the line where he said 'I don’t see any reason why it would be,' ... he had meant to say 'would not be [Russia]' thereby reversing the sentence’s meaning..."