Trump called journalists scumbags, should be executed, Bolton claims

WASHINGTON: Former national security adviser John Bolton has claimed that Donald Trump called journalists “scumbags” who should be “executed”.

Those comments, which Mr Bolton alleges were made last summer, were published on Wednesday night alongside other alleged wrongdoings contained in a new tell-all book. The extract states that Mr Trump attacked journalists during a meeting last summer in New Jersey. He was said to have called journalists “scumbags” who should be jailed so they would have to expose their sources, wrote Mr Bolton. “These people should be executed. They are scumbags,” Mr Trump said, according to Bolton’s account from “The Room Where It Happened.” The alleged comments, made in private, prove to be more shocking than Mr Trump’s previous public attacks against reporters. He also renewed his attacks on Mr Bolton on Wednesday, who he called “a washed-up guy” some nine months after he was ousted as an advisor. “He broke the law – he was a washed up guy, I gave him a second chance”, Mr Trump told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday, as the book’s extracts were published. “He couldn’t get senate confirmed so I gave him a non-senate confirmed position. This is highly classified information & he did not have approval”, added Mr Trump.