I think Josh Marshall has a better grasp of the future of John Bolton than does Andrea Mitchell.
The word is that John Bolton is not going quietly after President Trump’s ostentatious slam-dunking of him on Twitter. Maybe he won’t. But there’s a part of this equation I doubt we’ll see much discussed in the press coverage of this story. Bolton isn’t really a foreign policy guy and hasn’t been for more than a decade. Yes, he still discusses foreign policy and for the last year or so he had what is basically the top foreign policy job in the US government. But since the end of the Bush years Bolton has really been a public politics guy and a consummate player in the GOP buck-raking industrial complex…
...But here’s the thing. Donald Trump owns the Republican party. Just ask Justin Amash and Mark Sanford and Bob Corker and a number of others. Trump is the first, second and third rail of Republican politics. You can’t be anti-Trump and be anywhere in the GOP/Fox News funding system, let alone in elected office. If you want to stay in you have to do what Sen. Ben Sasse did and give Trump full custody of your dignity with maybe the hope of occasional visitation rights.
I have no doubt that Bolton wants to roast Trump alive. Partly it’s just payback for canning and humiliating him. But Bolton must also be horrified by what Trump appears to want to do in Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and various other places. But if Bolton goes full Trump critic it’s very hard to see how he’s ever going to make the massive paydays he was before Trump picked him……
At the risk of stating the obvious, Bolton is far too crazy and awful to make it as a dissident Republican Never Trumper on MSNBC. He’s the worst of the worst. If he goes anti-Trump as opposed to quiescent Trump wraith husk who still gets a new gig on Fox after a cooling off period he will be truly homeless.
Don’t expect plebes like lapdog Mattis or John Kelly to bite the hand that feeds them either.
Cohn and Mooch may have “Fuck You Dotard” bucks, but the old Generals won’t put country over money.
They are both Republicans.