John Bolton, now a staunch critic of his former boss, shocked CNN’s Kaitlan Collins when he named the unexpected politician he wrote in on his 2020 ballot — and explained why he’ll do it again this year
Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty
US National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks during a media conference in Kiev in 2019
John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has finally revealed who will earn his vote in the upcoming presidential election — and it wasn’t on anyone’s 2024 bingo card.
Bolton, 75, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on April 10 that he’ll “vote for Dick Cheney” in the upcoming election between Trump and Joe Biden.
Though Bolton previously admitted that he didn’t vote for Trump in the 2020 election, he has stayed quiet on who ultimately did earn his vote. When pressed by Collins to name the person, he gave in, saying, “Well, I might as well say it now. I voted for Dick Cheney. And I’ll vote for Dick Cheney again this November.”
Related: John Bolton Implies Donald Trump Spends More Time Watching TV Than He Does in the Oval Office
Taken aback, Collins asked for his reasoning behind the surprising write-in vote. Bolton described the controversial former vice president as “a principled Reaganite conservative” before quipping that voting for an 83-year-old apparently isn’t an issue anymore.
“Age is no longer a factor in American presidential politics, so his age doesn’t disqualify him,” he said, adding, “And I think he’d do an immensely better job than either Trump or Biden.”
Related: Trump’s 2024 Veepstakes Have Begun: A Look at His Top Choices for Running Mate
Tom Benitez – Pool/Getty
Former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks at the Sunshine Summit opening dinner at Disney’s Contemporary Resort on November 12, 2015
Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, also offered some support for Cheney’s daughter, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, as he admitted that the MAGA-opposing congresswoman could potentially get a write-in vote from him in the future.
“I like Liz a lot,” he told Collins. “But right now, I’ll stick with her father.”
Related: Dick Cheney Says Trump Is a ‘Threat to Our Republic’ in Video Supporting Daughter Liz’s Reelection
Bolton said he’s hopeful that by sharing his preferred write-in candidate, he might “sway the electorate and prevent both Trump and Biden from being the successful candidate.”
“If I could start a nationwide write-in campaign for Dick Cheney, maybe I should do that.”
Sean Gallup/Getty
U.S. President Donald Trump, flanked by national security adviser John Bolton, speaks to the media at a press conference on the second day of the 2018 NATO Summit
Like Bolton, Liz, 57, has become an outspoken opponent of Trump. She was elected to Congress in 2016, and voted with Trump for more than 90% of her term, up until the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Liz lost her bid for reelection in Wyoming after voting to impeach Trump and leading a House investigation into the insurrection, but she told PEOPLE she has no regrets about her actions.
“For me, there’s no House seat that is worth violating your oath to the Constitution, or accepting the kinds of behavior that we saw from Donald Trump leading up to and on the 6th,” she said.
Speaking on how it felt to see many of her Republican colleagues side with Trump after his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, she said, “It was both heartbreaking and also terrifying. Heartbreaking because so many of the people that I had served with, I had so badly misjudged. And it was terrifying that it happened so quickly that people would fall in line [behind Trump’s election denial].”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Like Liz, Bolton has similarly faced public opposition from Trump since his time serving under him. After claiming the former president “barely knew where Ukraine was” in an interview with Newsmax in March 2022, Bolton was called “irrelevant” in a statement from a Trump spokesperson.
“John Bolton was fired because he believes anything less than war is not enough,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich said in a statement to PEOPLE at the time. “President Trump ensured peace during his administration and ended wars, making Bolton irrelevant.”
For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on People.
Source Agencies
