Bolton: Trump’s time watching TV versus in the Oval Office ‘would be a very interesting statistic’

Former national security adviser John Bolton suggested Sunday that President Trump pays more attention to television than he does to his advisers.

“I think it’s a combination of television and listening to people outside of the government that he trusts for one reason or another,” Bolton said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.

.@AmbJohnBolton tells @margbrennan “It would be a very interesting statistic,” if one were to “clock the amount of time” that @realDonaldTrump spends in the Oval Office and in his private dining room, where Bolton says Trump watches cable news pic.twitter.com/udQJpKLkF8

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 5, 2020

“I think that if you could clock the amount of time he spends actually in the Oval Office versus the amount of time he spends in the little dining room off the Oval Office with the cable news networks of one form or another on, it would be a very interesting statistic,” he added.

Bolton also said he stands by his April 2018 comment that the U.S. was pursuing the “Libya model” for North Korea, a remark Trump has frequently blasted, telling Fox News it was “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen on television.”

“I don’t think I could be clearer in talking about the Libya model of 2003-2004, we had a clear strategic decision for Muammar Qaddafi to give up Libya’s nuclear weapons program, we have never had that from North Korea,” Bolton said, saying Qaddafi’s overthrow and death during the Arab Spring in 2011 was unrelated.

“One day the president will learn a little history and we’ll be better for it,” Bolton added.

Bolton demurred on whether he had ever encountered reported intelligence alleging Russian officials had offered Taliban-linked militants bounties for the deaths of American troops in Afghanistan.

“I’m not going to comment on what I did or didn’t know out of the intelligence,” he said.

Obama-era national security adviser Susan Rice had previously claimed that the intelligence surfaced during Bolton’s tenure and said he would have taken it to the president.

“I’ve said in countless other interviews, I’m not going to disclose classified information, I’ve got a struggle with the president trying to repress my book on that score already,” Bolton said.