Trump says his biggest misstep as president was hiring ‘disloyal people’

Former President Donald Trump said on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast Friday that the biggest mistake of his presidency was hiring “disloyal people.” 

Mr. Trump’s comments came while discussing his top feats in the White House, like successfully nominating three Supreme Court justices. 

“The biggest mistake I made was I picked some people. I picked some great people, you know, but you don’t think about that. I picked some people that I shouldn’t have picked,” he said. “I picked a few people that I shouldn’t have picked.” 

Mr. Rogan interrupted, asking if the former president was referring to “neocons,” or neoconservatives. 

“Yeah, neocons or bad people or disloyal people,” Mr. Trump said.

He specifically pointed to retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, who served first as Homeland Security secretary and later chief of staff, and John Bolton, who was national security adviser.

Mr. Kelly said in an interview with The New York Times this week that the former president praised Adolf Hitler and that he fit the definition of a fascist. 

“I mean, look, I mean,  [you’re] reading about him a little bit today, a guy like Kelly, who is a bully, a bully, a weak person,” Mr. Trump said. “You know, you know more about bullies than anybody probably around because you deal in a certain sport [UFC] where the bullies are exposed very quickly.”

Mr. Trump called Mr. Bolton, now a staunch critic of the former president, an “idiot,” but added he was “great for me.” 

“He was good in a certain way. He’s a nut job. And every time I had to deal with a country, when they saw this whack job standing behind me, they said, ‘Oh, man, Trump’s going to go to war with us,’” Mr. Trump said. “He was with [former President George W.] Bush when they went stupidly into the Middle East. We should have never done it.”