While Republicans were celebrating victories in both North Carolina special elections for Congress on Tuesday evening, the host of The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell was still eagerly seeking the most negative news imaginable for President Trump. Now that he's no longer the national security adviser, John Bolton could please liberals if he “could write and deliver” the “most explosive Trump book ever” if he finishes it before the 2020 presidential election.
O’Donnell began his monologue by combining some “very bad polls” that don’t favor the President with “very bad news” for Trump, who created “what might be one of the biggest problems his re-election campaign could be facing a year from now: John Bolton’s memoirs.”
O'DONNELL: Tonight, in their New York offices, major book publishers are probably staying late trying to calculate how many millions of dollars they can offer John Bolton now if he can deliver an inside the Trump White House book that will hit bookstores in the final months of the presidential campaign when such a book would have maximum sales potential.
John Bolton is already the author of a couple of books, including a memoir of his experience serving in George W. Bush's administration. But now, John Bolton is in a position to write and deliver the most explosive Trump book ever, which means it would be one of the best-selling books in publishing history if the book hits bookstores before Donald Trump goes down to defeat on Election Day if, as all polls now indicate, is most likely -- that's the most likely version of our next presidential election at the polls as of now.
We will discuss those polls later in this hour. Those polls will be part of book publishers' calculations of how much money they can offer John Bolton. They're making those calculations right now. And those polls say John Bolton can become one of the richest authors in history if he delivers a book before Election Day.
And that same book the day after the election might be worth much, much less if Donald Trump loses the election. So, you have to ask yourself -- if you're Donald Trump, you have to ask yourself what kind of person is John Bolton?
Is he one of those people working for Donald Trump who will avoid any possible public conflict with Donald Trump, like former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who has written a book which is now being largely ignored because it does not describe the kind of Trump chaos that Bob Woodward's book describes and Michael Wolff's book describes, both giant best-sellers.
If John Bolton is the kind of person who will hold back what he knows is publishing gold? Is John Bolton that kind of person? Is he the kind of person that will now protect Donald Trump out of personal loyalty to Donald Trump?
Basically, O'Donnell is promising that Bolton can become very rich by writing a book that thrills the Lawrence O'Donnells of the world. He hopes he's "that kind of person."
O’Donnell tried to answer his own question by noting that “Bolton has already publicly disagreed with Donald Trump about how he left his job as national security advisor.” The wishful thinking just kept coming:
We are doing this because the Trump White House is now and always has been in chaos. Chaos described vividly in Michael Wolff`s book Fire and Fury, and in Bob Woodward`s book Fear. And very likely in what could be the most politically damaging book of all that could outsell all the rest of them, John Bolton's next book, for which publishers, who are calculating their massive offers to John Bolton tonight, are probably using a working title of something like I Resigned, by John Bolton.
