Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday urged President Trump against choosing former U.N. ambassador John R. Bolton as his national security adviser.
Mr. Paul, whose anti-interventionist stance aligns closely with what the president has espoused, said he fears that Mr. Bolton’s go-it-alone mindset would lead to “secret wars” around the globe.
“The problem with John Bolton is he disagrees with President Trump’s foreign policy,” the Kentucky Republican said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“John Bolton still believes the Iraq War was a good idea. He still believes that regime change is a good idea. He still believes that nation-building is a good idea,” said the senator. “I think that his history of sort of acting on his own, my fear is that secret wars would be developing around the globe. And so, no, I think he would be a bad choice.”
Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and frequent commentator on Fox News, has bucked the neoconservative label but has been associated with many groups advocating those views.
His foreign policy stance, however, is undoubtedly more hawkish than Mr. Paul’s.
The senator said that Mr. Bolton’s views more closely align with those of Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has been a consistent critic of Mr. Trump.
The president is interviewing Mr. Bolton and at least three other candidates, all Army generals, for the national security job, the White House reported.
The interviews at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, where the president is spending the weekend, include Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster; retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, currently the acting national security adviser; and Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen, superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said former CIA Director David H. Petraeus is officially out of the running.
Mr. Trump ousted retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn from the post last week for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about discussions with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition.
Retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward rejected the president’s job offer to replace Mr. Flynn on Thursday.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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