Ex-President Donald Trump once quipped that “hopefully COVID takes out” his former national security adviser—and chief nemesis—John Bolton, a new book claims. According to Nightmare Scenario, a copy of which was obtained by Axios, Trump made the joke in a meeting soon after Bolton penned his deeply unflattering tell-all about the former president and his time in the White House. “Trump had tried to joke about the virus for months, sometimes even mocking people who had become ill,” reads an excerpt of the book written by Washington Post journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta. “At one meeting several months [before Trump got sick], NEC director Larry Kudlow had stifled a cough. The room had frozen... Trump had waved his hands in front of his face, as if to jokingly ward off any flying virus particles, and then cracked a smile. ‘I was just kidding,’ he’d said. ‘Larry will never get COVID. He will defeat it with his optimism.’ ... ‘John Bolton,’ he had said ... ‘Hopefully COVID takes out John.’”

Axios asked Bolton about the quote, and he quipped: “Fooled me—I thought he was relying on his lawyers.”