WASHINGTON — National security adviser John Bolton said Sunday that President Donald Trump would raise the question of Russian interference in the 2016 election when he meets with Vladimir Putin later this month, even as Mr. Trump himself sidestepped a question as to whether he would do so.
Looking ahead to a Trump-Putin encounter, Mr. Bolton also brushed aside questions as to whether Mr. Trump had been too eager to accept the word of Kim Jong Un when he met with the North Korean leader last month, seeking to quell North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Mr. Trump tweeted after that encounter that there no longer was a nuclear threat from North Korea, an assessment that many diplomatic and nuclear experts dispute.
Interviewed on CBS, Mr. Bolton touted a U.S. timeline that he said called for the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistics programs within a year. But the national security adviser declined comment on a Washington Post report citing intelligence officials as saying in the wake of the Trump-Kim talks that North Korea had sought to mislead the United States about the size of its nuclear arsenal and hide the existence of some nuclear facilities.
In a separate interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Mr. Bolton offered a testy assessment of critics who have questioned the president’s negotiating style with foreign leaders — including a disastrous encounter with other members of the Group of 7 in May — as off-the-cuff, impulsive and ill-informed, with a tendency to flatter authoritarian figures while slapping down longtime U.S. friends.
“I don’t think anybody ought to have a case of the vapors over discussions we have in NATO or the G-7, versus discussions we have with Putin or Kim Jong Un,” Mr. Bolton said. “They’re very, very different — the president treats them differently. He understands what the strategic interests are, and that’s what he’s trying to pursue.”
The national security adviser also said the summit would be “somewhat unstructured,” especially during the leaders’ one-on-one time, to avoid “the pressure of immediate deadlines or crises.”
Less than two weeks before a NATO summit in Brussels, Mr. Trump again struck a combative tone Sunday toward traditional U.S. allies, issuing a spate of fresh warnings on trade and declaring that “we spend a fortune on NATO.” Speaking to Fox interviewer Maria Bartiromo, he also renewed criticism of the European Union, calling the bloc “possibly as bad as China” on trade.
In the interview, Mr. Trump was asked whether he would press Mr. Putin about meddling in the election, but he declined to answer, instead raising questions about the Democratic National Committee and the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Ms. Bartiromo did not return to the subject.
Mr. Bolton said on CBS that he himself had asked Mr. Putin about election meddling when he met the Russian leader last week. The national security adviser, who was previously known as a Russia hawk, made a distinction between Mr. Putin’s previous flat denial of any Russian involvement, saying that this time, the Russian leader had limited his disavowal to any state interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential vote, implying that other actors were involved.
When interviewer Margaret Brennan expressed skepticism that a concerted campaign to aid Mr. Trump would have been done without Mr. Putin’s knowledge and approval, Mr. Bolton said the notion was “worth pursuing — I’m sure the president will want to pursue it.”
In fact, Mr. Trump has long preferred to avoid the issue and frequently has tried to cast doubt on whether Russia interfered at all, despite the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies. Special counsel Robert Mueller is probing whether Trump campaign officials participated in the Russian interference.
At least one senior Republican, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said Mr. Trump needed to press Mr. Putin forcefully on the election-interference question. The president has repeatedly suggested that he believes Mr. Putin’s denials.
“I’m concerned when the president tweets, you know, ‘Russia denies they meddled in our election,’ ” Mr. Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding: “When they say they didn’t meddle, they’re lying. So I’m glad the president is going to confront Putin. Show him the evidence you’ve got, Mr. President, because it’s overwhelming.”
But Mr. Trump appeared more interested in denying any coordination between his campaign and Russia. In his Fox interview, the president again railed against the Mueller investigation, saying it played into Moscow’s hands.
“I don’t like that because it’s bad for the country,” Mr. Trump told Ms. Bartiromo. “You know, if Russia is in fact looking to sow discord or chaos, they’ve got to be saying, ‘This is the greatest thing we’ve ever done.’ ”
Mr. Trump also caused a stir last week when he appeared to open the door to recognizing Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Mr. Bolton, without directly addressing the president’s comment, said that was “not the position of the United States.”
The Washington Post contributed.
First Published: July 2, 2018, 3:50 a.m.
