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Trump Hoped COVID Would ‘Take Out’ John Bolton

June 23, 2021 · 7:54 am ET · Leave a Comment

Former President Donald Trump said that he hoped the coronavirus would take out his former national security adviser, John Bolton, who had just written an explosive tell-all about his time in the White House, Axios reports.

Here’s the passage from the new book, Nightmare Scenario:

Trump had tried to joke about the virus for months, sometimes even mocking people who had become ill… At one meeting several months before Trump got sick, NEC director Larry Kudlow had stifled a cough. The room had frozen… Trump had waved his hands in front of his face, as if to jokingly ward off any flying virus particles, and then cracked a smile. “I was just kidding,” he’d said. “Larry will never get COVID. He will defeat it with his optimism.” … “John Bolton,” he had said … “Hopefully COVID takes out John.”

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Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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