Bolton Brags He Planned Coups, Says 1/6 Wasn’t One (And AOC Knows It Too)

BUCK: Clay, did you see this? Bolton, from the Trump administration… He’s been in D.C. a long time, John Bolton. I actually think I did Red Eye with him once at Fox, believe it or not.

CLAY: Back in the day.

BUCK: Way back in the day, yeah. Do we have him talking about the coup plotting? Yes, we do. This is what he said to CNN’s Jake Tapper. This is a pretty amazing moment. Play it.

BUCK: Okay. So here’s what I find so interesting about this, Clay. A couple of different parts of this — and remember, Bolton was brought into the Trump White House…

CLAY: Did Tapper follow up? When someone says, “Hey, I’ve planned a bunch of coups in my day,” I can’t imagine there’s very many Americans who could say that. That’s kind of a record drop moment, right?

BUCK: Let me tell you, Captain Walrus Mustache there is being a little grandiose: “I’m the guy who planned a coup!” Occasionally… You want to talk about a coup? Libya. Look what happened in Libya. We got rid of Khadafy. That’s a coup, folks, where we give air cover. That was leading from behind. But, yeah, no. We’ve toppled governments. Of course, America’s toppled governments. We used to do this on a regular basis. I just thought it’s funny, though, that he hates Trump, okay?

He is an anti-Trumper, wrote a book trashing Trump, the whole thing. He’s one of these people who goes to work for the Trump administration, “Oh, I didn’t know what Trump would be like” and wants a senior role and then the moment that Trump doesn’t like him anymore, he turns on them, which I think that’s, in and of itself, pretty gross. I’ve never… I don’t trash people that I have professional relationships with, unless they have publicly wronged me in some way or done something wrong.

You don’t leave somebody that you’ve worked with and say, “Oh, I hate that person.” But it was interesting because even he says, folks — and this goes to the January 6th situation. He’s saying, “This wasn’t a coup.” He’s like, “I know coups when I see them,” and this is what I have been saying for 18 months now, Clay. This is what we talk about day in and day out. It was a riot. It was not a coup. This word “insurrection” is just silly. It’s ridiculous.

It wasn’t mostly — not entirely — middle-aged folks who were really upset about the election who trespass on the Capitol grounds and took a bunch of selfies including a guy with, like, a fur hat and a spear. There were clearly some folks who were a little off who were there. And there were some people who attacked police and did some things. But even Bolton who hates Trump will admit, “This is not a coup, folks. I know a coup when I see one,” and CNN still sits around and it’s gonna be Capitol insurrection for the weeks ahead.

CLAY: Well, I don’t even know, Buck, when they’re going to end all of this January 6th hearings. When Liz Cheney loses her primary, what happens then? I think it’s like August 16th or something in that neighborhood where the primary in Wyoming will occur, that it appears she’s going to get totally and utterly destroyed so she’s no longer going to be a congresswoman once we get to August, really, if she loses the Republican primary.

I know the election is in November. But what exactly is going to occur once they lose the House, which there’s a virtual certainty that Democrats are going to lose the House. The Senate is more of a toss-up. As you look going forward, Buck, I just… I really… It’s difficult for me to contemplate what the goal is even now. Because the goal has been, “Hey, we’re going to attack Donald Trump as much as we can.”

It’s clearly not registering politically to help Joe Biden in any way. And so it’s a distraction in 9.1% inflation times. Do you have a sense for…? Do they think, “Oh, this January 6th hearing is really working for us”? I mean, what would Democrats say if you gave them truth serum and they weren’t just trying to spin in public? I mean, CNN’s ratings are awful.

BUCK: I think it’s almost a delay tactic, Clay, where they know there’s no good stories to tell about the administration; so, this is the safe space that they can emotionally run to. Tthe Democrat Party faithful, the base, the left, they can just watch night after night insurrection coverage, insurrection coverage. Because otherwise CNN would have to say, “Yeah, so the inflation rate’s really bad and the crime rate is still really high and the border…” All the things we talk about.

“The border is wide open. It’s a total mess.” They don’t want to discuss those things. They don’t want to talk about the price of gas. So this is something else for them. But on the insurrection issue — and this is really interesting — AOC here was speaking to a journalist, I guess. Somebody came up and asked some questions on the Capitol steps, and she said something… I know what she was trying to convey here, and, yeah, she’s a hysteric and not very bright and it’s really sad and quite pathetic that the younger Democrats particularly look to her as someone that they should listen to about, honestly, anything. But here she is saying that there’s some stuff we haven’t found out yet with all this information, Clay.

BUCK: Okay. First of all, the janitors aren’t safe. Put aside, as I said, the hysteria for a second. Is she accusing Capitol Police at some level of an inside job? That’s what it sounds like: Sympathetic, open the doors, told them to come in, told them to go into certain areas. This is AOC saying that, right? If you or I say, “Capitol Police let people in,” we’re conspiracy theorists. “That’s not true! It was an insurrection!” What is she saying, Clay?

CLAY: Well, she’s pointing out what is true, which is there was almost no security at all at the Capitol on that date. Now, partly that’s because the idea of calling out the troops was considered to be racist when Senator Tom Cotton in Arkansas suggested it as a way to provide protection during the summer of riots. But there is — on video — some Capitol Police just opening up the doors and removing the barricades and letting people go in to the Capitol. That has been a defense that has been offered on behalf of some of the January 6th defendants. So, she is speaking truth — a truth that Democrats don’t want to consider at all — which is many of these people did not violently trespass into the Capitol. They were, effectively, waved in.

BUCK: If they were holding hearings to get to the bottom of the insurrection instead of the obvious political show trial they’re having, why don’t we know? I’m sure we could find out very easily, who were the members of Capitol Hill Police who on video as you point out were effectively escorting people into certain areas of the Capitol after it had supposedly been blocked off to civilians? What did they do? Why did they do that? Did they tell people it was okay? Did they wave people inside the actual building and say, “All right, they’re gonna but in there?” Where is all that testimony? Where is the discussion? AOC is bringing it up. I feel like we should be able to bring it up too.

CLAY: I think it’s a very valid point that she is raising. And if you’re truly concerned about January 6th — if you are truly concerned about the precedent that it set and the danger going forward — instead of retrospectively looking back at what took place, wouldn’t you be trying to guarantee that something like that never happened again, which would be a part of an investigation to look forward, not just backwards?

BUCK: Has there been a single major takeaway from all of the Democrat histrionics on Capitol Hill of, “Next time our security will be much better because…”? This won’t happen again from a security perspective. No. It’s all “Donald Trump is Hitler.” That’s basically what it all comes down to.