Responding to the ongoing media battle surrounding the upcoming publication of former National Security Adviser John Bolton's book, "The Room Where It Happened," White House trade adviser Peter Navarro stepped into the fray, ridiculing claims made by Bolton and noting that, "I was in the room" too.
Possibly one of the most damaging claims made by Bolton is that US President Donald Trump appealed to Chinese President Xi Jinping for his help in getting reelected, as quoted by Vanity Fair: "Make sure I win. I will probably win anyway ... [but] buy a lot of soybeans and wheat and make sure we win." Allegedly, these words were taken from a conversation between Trump and Xi at a 2019 G20 summit in Japan.
According to The Guardian, Navarro insisted that such allegations were "just silly" because "this president has been the toughest president on China of any American president ever." He added his prediction that Bolton "will not only not get the profits from that book, but he risks a jail sentence. He has done something that is very, very serious in terms of American national security, and he’s got to pay a price for that."