#Trump: I should have fired John Bolton for botching North Korea nuclear talks

President Trump attacked his former national security adviser John Bolton on Thursday, saying he should have fired Bolton for “stupidly” tanking negotiations with North Korea by suggesting a “Libyan model” for nuclear talks.

Trump lashed out at Bolton after news organizations published excerpts from his forthcoming book “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir” — in which Bolton accuses Trump of “fundamentally unacceptable behavior.”

“When Wacko John Bolton went on Deface the Nation and so stupidly said that he looked at the ‘Libyan Model’ for North Korea, all hell broke out,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “Kim Jong Un, who we were getting along with very well, went ‘ballistic’, just like his missiles – and rightfully so.”

Trump added that Kim “didn’t want Bolton anywhere near him.”

“Bolton’s dumbest of all statements set us back very badly with North Korea, even now. I asked him, ‘what the hell were you thinking’” He had no answer and just apologized. That was early on, I should have fired him right then & there!” Trump wrote.

The Libyan model refers to dictator Moammar Gadhafi peacefully ending his chemical and nuclear weapons programs in 2003. Eight years later, US-backed rebels deposed, murdered and humiliated him.

Bolton made the remark in April 2018, shortly before Trump’s first meeting with Kim at a June 2018 summit in Singapore.

Bolton strongly opposed Trump’s diplomatic efforts with the nuclear-armed authoritarian state, and writes in his book that Trump’s wooing of Kim “made me ill.”

During the Singapore summit, Bolton alleges that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slipped him a note that said Trump is “so full of shit” and later remarked that Trump’s efforts with Kim have “zero probability of success.”

The Justice Department is suing to halt release of Bolton’s book, arguing that it contains classified information.

Trump said last week that Bolton could face criminal charges for releasing the book without permission. In a Wednesday interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump said Bolton “broke the law” by distributing the book. Experts say Bolton also could lose book revenue for bypassing the formal pre-publication review process.