Former national security adviser John Bolton did not hold back on his feelings about President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
Bolton, who advised Trump during the first administration until a series of disagreements led him to resign, participated in an onstage interview Thursday at the Politico Security Summit.
Bolton was asked to explain his previous comments calling Witkoff, the lawyer and real estate investor appointed by Trump to head multiple geopolitical negotiations on his behalf, a "disaster in the making."
"Given his responsibilities in the Russia-Ukraine war and Iran, just to take those two. … He came to the job, he knows nothing about Russia, he knows nothing about Ukraine, he knows nothing about Iran, he knows nothing about nuclear weapons, he knows nothing about international arms control and nuclear proliferation, he knows nothing about verification and compliance of international agreements," Bolton said. "What could go wrong?"
Witkoff is a longtime friend and business partner of Trump, having known each other for approximately four decades. The pair were playing golf when the second attempt on Trump's life took place in September 2024.
Their close relationship propelled Witkoff to become the president's right-hand man on foreign policy, at times eclipsing the portfolio of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Despite no formal training in foreign relations, Witkoff has participated in negotiations with Israel, Hamas, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and other nations at the center of the U.S. foreign policy priorities.
Witkoff is traveling with Trump on his Middle East tour, stopping in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Asked if Witkoff's lack of a pedigree in government service could be in line with what Trump and his allies are seeking, Bolton scoffed. He compared the situation to hiring "the country's best divorce lawyer to handle your next antitrust case."
"I think he's already shown himself vulnerable to Vladimir Putin's manipulation," Bolton said. "He conveyed Russian propaganda that he heard from Putin on the situation of Ukrainian troops inside Russia, conveyed that back to Trump, who said it publicly, said the Ukrainians are surrounded, they're about to be slaughtered. That wasn't true, but that's what the Russians wanted the world to believe."
"We can only imagine what other propaganda went from Putin through Witkoff to Trump. We've seen him take the word of the ayatollahs and their various 'commitments' on the nuclear program," he continued. "I think it's a real danger for Trump politically if he allows these negotiations to end in humiliation for the United States and for him personally."
Bolton, who was also U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush, is among the most well-known foreign policy experts of the pre-Trump Republican Party.
His hawkish brand of neoconservativism is a far cry from the antiestablishment philosophy of his former boss — an ideological divide that ultimately led to their falling out.
Since his resignation, Bolton has been a vocal and recurring critic of Trump, variously describing the president as "juvenile" and "stunningly uninformed."
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However, Bolton has also pushed back on other neoconservatives who characterize the president as a "threat to democracy," calling such rhetoric overblown.
"We’ve gone 235 years with this Constitution," he said in September. "We’ve survived a lot worse than Donald Trump."