- John Bolton said he wrote in Dick Cheney when he cast his vote in 2020
- Former NSA said Cheney is a ‘principled Reagan conservative’
Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton says he won’t vote for his former boss in November, but that doesn’t mean he’ll vote for President Biden.
Bolton has said he wrote in Dick Cheney when he cast his vote in 2020 and will do so again.
Bolton first made the revelation during a CNN interview with Caitlin Collins.
“Well, I might as well say it now: I voted for Dick Cheney,” Bolton said of former President Bush’s vice president. “And I will vote for Dick Cheney again this November.”
Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton reveals for the first time that he voted for former Vice President Dick Cheney in 2020
Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser in the White House in 2018 and 2019, but has since become a fierce critic of Trump.
He has described the former president as unfit for office and accused him of caring only about his own interests.
More recently, Bolton even suggested that Trump is susceptible to blackmail due to his mounting legal problems.
Bolton said he wrote in Cheney because he was a “principled Reagan conservative and still is.”
Bolton said age is no longer a “disqualifier” in American politics, so it doesn’t disqualify him.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney with his daughter, then-Congresswoman Liz Cheney (left) and his wife Lynne Cheney in May 2021.
Bolton said he wouldn’t vote for Trump in 2020 but he won’t vote for President Biden either.
Cheney is 83 years old, even older than Biden, 81, and Trump, 77.
As Bush’s vice president, Cheney was a key figure in pushing for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Bolton said he hopes revealing who he voted for will influence the electorate and help prevent both Trump and Biden from winning.
The former conservative adviser could also even vote for Cheney’s daughter, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney at some point.
“Well, I really like Liz and, you know, maybe one day she’ll get my write-in vote too, but for now I’ll stick with her dad.”
During the interview, Bolton also weighed in on conservative Republicans winning a key procedural vote Wednesday after Trump urged them to repeal the controversial surveillance law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, better known as FISA.
FISA Section 702 is pending reauthorization.
The law allows U.S. intelligence to collect communications records of foreigners abroad, but it has also been used as a backdoor to allow the FBI to search the collected data for information on Americans caught up in foreign surveillance.
Trump took to Truth Social to tell Republicans to ‘KILL FISA.’
The decision by some Republicans to block FISA also blocked an amendment to the law that would have added a warrant requirement to the law for Americans’ data.
Trump and Bolton in the White House when Bolton was his national security adviser in 2018
Bolton criticized Trump in the interview, saying that Trump was unsure about FISA even when they were in the White House together.
He argued that this shows that Trump “does not understand” US national security.
“He understands Donald Trump’s security, that’s what he cares about,” Bolton said.