Trump asks China president to help him win 2020 election, John Bolton claims

Mr. John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, claims that Donald Trump “pleaded” with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win re-election in 2020 by purchasing more US farming products.

The former national security adviser claims this in his new book set to be released next week.

At a one-on-one meeting at a multilateral summit in Japan in the summer of 2019, Mr Xi expressed his dissatisfaction with some critics of China within the US.

Mr Bolton stated that Trump misinterpreted Xi’s frustration.

“Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats.

“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming US presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win.

“He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise,” Mr. Bolton adds.

Mr Bolton’s description of Mr Trump’s and Mr Xi’s conversation, in his soon-to-be-released book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, does not, however, outline a proposed quid pro quo between Mr Trump and China, whereas the Trump administration’s freeze on vital military assistance to Ukraine as it sought political favours was a central component of Democrats’ impeachment of Mr Trump.

At a press conference earlier this week why he is trying to prevent the book’s publication, Mr Trump said he “wasn’t impressed” with Mr Bolton while he worked for the administration and that the book was “inappropriate.”

“Somebody said he went out and wrote a book. If he wrote a book, I can’t imagine that he can because that’s highly classified information. Even conversations with me, they’re highly classified. I told that to the attorney general before — I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified,” Mr Trump said.