Former Trump adviser turned political nemesis John Bolton isn’t mincing words when it comes to his old boss’s foreign policy—or his obsession with a Nobel Peace Prize.
Bolton, who served as Trump’s National Security Adviser from 2018 to 2019, torched the president’s Ukraine strategy in a series of posts on X Tuesday — just days after FBI agents raided his home and office in what some are calling a politically motivated attack on one of Trump’s most vocal Republican critics.
“Donald Trump’s Ukraine policy today is no more coherent than it was last Friday when his administration executed search warrants against my home and office,” Bolton wrote.
“Collapsing in confusion and haste, Trump’s negotiations may be in their last throes, along with his Nobel Peace Prize campaign.”
Bolton also linked to a blistering op-ed in the Washington Examiner titled “Trump’s utterly incoherent Ukraine strategy,” in which he accuses Trump of undermining diplomacy, alienating allies, and moving at a “furious pace” toward a rushed and ill-conceived deal with Russia.
“His efforts over the last two-plus weeks may have left us further from peace and a just settlement for Ukraine than before,” Bolton, 76, wrote. “Bilateral relationships have suffered considerable damage because of the fallout from the administration’s failing diplomacy.”
The FBI’s raid on Bolton’s home reportedly stems from a national security probe into classified records. While Bolton has previously faced allegations of leaking sensitive information — particularly after publishing his 2020 tell-all The Room Where It Happened — earlier investigations fizzled without charges.
But even with a target on his back, Bolton’s scathing critiques on Trump’s foreign policy continued.
Bolton’s assistant denied a request for comment from the Daily Beast, writing in an email “He’s not doing media right now due to the circumstances.”
In a statement to the Daily Beast, the White House referenced Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s recent comments during an appearance on Fox & Friends.
“John Bolton, who I think has made a disgrace of himself on television and in the newspapers claiming that he knows better than President Trump, he doesn’t, and neither do any of these so-called foreign policy experts who have never solved a foreign policy conflict in their lives,” Leavitt said at the time. “Look at what this president has done — in six months, he has stopped seven global conflicts all around the world using the leverage of the United States of America to negotiate these conflicts to an end.
It’s no secret that Trump’s efforts to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine are at-least partly motivated by his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize.
The once America-first presidential candidate is insisting he’s already ended numerous wars in the seven-months since he’s returned to office, including brokering a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia at the White House earlier this month and taking credit for easing tensions between India and Pakistan.
In June, Trump complained on Truth Social that he would not be handed a Nobel Prize “no matter what I do,” even if he solved the Russia–Ukraine conflict.
According to Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv, Trump even phoned NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg — a former Norwegian finance minister — “out of the blue” to ask for a Peace Prize nomination, on the eve of his most recent meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Four U.S. presidents have received the Nobel Peace Prize to date — including Trump’s other favorite foil, Barack Obama, who won it in 2009.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and Bolton for comment.
