“As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat — not here but, you know, other places — it takes a lot of work, and that’s not what [Donald Trump] did,” Bolton, who served as the top national security official in the Trump administration for 17 months before a bitter exit in 2019, told Tapper.
It was a passing reference, apparently meant as a stinging criticism of the former president rather than a bombshell admission of responsibility.
But clips of the remarks went viral online, drawing millions of views from all corners. Within hours, they had sparked official condemnation and unofficial speculation from foreign observers, especially in parts of the world where decades of U.S. intervention remain fresh memories.
Evo Morales, the former president of Bolivia who was ousted from office in 2019 by the military amid murky election claims, tweeted Wednesday that the remarks showed that the United States was “the worst enemy of democracy and life.”
Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, called on Thursday for an international investigation into Bolton’s remarks.
“It is important to know in which other countries the United States planned coups d’etat,” Zakharova told Radio Sputnik.
Was Bolton serious? Though some in the United States had their doubts, far-flung rivals suggested this was just further confirmation of what they already knew.
“This is no surprise,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily news conference on Thursday. “The admission simply shows that interfering in other countries’ internal affairs and overthrowing their governments have become the standard practice of the U.S. government.”
“This is very much part of the U.S. rule book,” Wang said.
Bolton did not specify what coups he had been involved in planning, if any, during the interview. When Tapper pressed him, he pointed to the unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in 2019 but added that the United States did not have “all that much to do with it.”
That was a strange example. For one thing, Bolton had said the attempt oust Maduro was “clearly not a coup” in 2019.
Maduro’s government has accused the United States of helping promote political instability in Venezuela.
Maduro did not offer a response after Bolton’s comments Tuesday. But Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s permanent representative to the United Nations, jumped on Twitter to respond that Bolton was correct: Coups did take a lot of work. “For this reason, he also failed with his local agents in Venezuela,” Moncada wrote.
Some international affairs experts said Bolon’s comments could be a setback for well-intentioned U.S. policies.
“It’s damaging to our efforts to advance and support democracy,” Stanford University-Hoover Institution scholar Larry Diamond said. “We have enough trouble already countering Russian and Chinese propaganda.”
Bolton could not be reached for immediate comment.
For America’s foreign critics and foes, Bolton often plays the role of a boogeyman, representing the worst of U.S. foreign policy and neoconservative interventionism.
As an official, his hard-line views have made him few friends internationally. But he appeared to relish his reputation, writing in one book that being labeled “human scum” by North Korean state media in 2003 was “the highest accolade” he had received.
Bolton had two stints in high positions. Under President George W. Bush, he served in…
Read More: John Bolton said he planned coups. The global outcry was swift.
