Trump said it would be ‘cool’ to invade Venezuela because the country is ‘really part of the United States,’ according to John Bolton’s new book

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National Security Advisor John Bolton (R) listens to U.S. President Donald Trump talk to reporters during a meeting of his cabinet in the Cabinet Room at the White House February 12, 2019 in Washington, DC.
National Security Advisor John Bolton (R) listens to U.S. President Donald Trump talk to reporters during a meeting of his cabinet in the Cabinet Room at the White House February 12, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

  • Former national security adviser John Bolton claims that President Donald Trump said it would be “cool” to invade Venezuela.

  • Trump made the statement because he believes the nation is “really part of the United States,” Bolton writes in his upcoming book, “In The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.”

  • According to The Washington Post, which published some excerpts from the book, Trump also confused the current and former presidents of Afghanistan.

  • Bolton also writes that Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping that Americans wanted him to amend the Constitution to allow him to serve more than two terms.

  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump claimed that it would be “cool” to invade Venezuela because the nation was “really part of the United States,” according to a new book by former national security adviser John Bolton.

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In his book, “In The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” the former national security adviser also claims that Trump kept confusing the current and former presidents of Afghanistan and asked Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to help him reach an agreement with Iran.

In 2019, Trump expressed he would consider an outright quarantine or blockade of Venezuela in an effort to dispose of President Nicolas Maduro’s authoritarian reign over the country. As Venezuela faced an economic crash and political turmoil, Maduro has been accused of rigging the country’s presidential elections and is not recognized by the US and many other nations. The US State Department offered a $15 million reward for his arrest.

“We seek a peaceful transition to power,” Trump said in 2019. “But all options are on the table.”

In a separate meeting at the Oval Office in 2018, Trump reportedly asked aides why the US could not invade Venezuela, according to senior officials. National security adviser H.R. McMaster, who immediately preceeded Bolton’s tenure, was reportedly present in the meeting. McMaster and other officials attempted to convince Trump that military action was tenuous and unpredictable.

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images

The US president also told Chinese President Xi Jinping that Americans wanted him to amend the Constitution to allow him to serve more than two terms, Bolton writes.

And in another section, Bolton alleges that Trump “pleaded” with Xi to buy US agricultural products to help him win reelection this year.

Bolton’s book is set to be released on June 23, but on Tuesday, the Trump administration sued the former national security adviser to prevent him from releasing the book.

The lawsuit against Bolton accuses him of breaking his contract by backing out of the National Security Council’s ongoing vetting process to determine whether Bolton’s book contains classified information that needs to be redacted or edited down.

The NSC “quickly identified significant quantities of classified information that it asked Defendant to remove,” the complaint said. “An iterative process between NSC Staff and Defendant then began, as required by the binding agreements he signed, with changes to the book and other information being securely passed between Defendant and NSC staff. Soon, though, Defendant apparently became dissatisfied at the pace of NSC’s review.”

It alleges that instead of waiting for the process to conclude, Bolton “decided to take matters into his own hands.”

On June 7, “without Defendant giving any prior notice to the NSC, press reports revealed that Defendant and his publisher had resolved to release the book on June 23, without completing the pre-publication review process,” the lawsuit said.

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