US midterms mark 'the beginning of the end' for Trump, John Bolton says

In an interview with FRANCE 24, John Bolton, who served as national security adviser to Donald Trump during his first term, called the US midterm results "the beginning of the end" for Trump's stranglehold on the Republican Party. Democrats regained control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate earlier this week, marking the Republicans' worst performance since the 1974 elections in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Speaking to FRANCE 24 from Washington, John Bolton said the midterm results mark "the beginning of the end" for US President Donald Trump's dominance of the Republican Party.

"His last address to the to the public before voting on Tuesday was not to talk about issues like cost of living and affordability, but to talk about his building projects and repairing the Reflecting Pool," Bolton noted.

He added: "I think Republicans understand more than ever before that Trump is in this for himself. Not for ideas, not for the party, for himself."

Read moreTrump makes last-ditch US midterm pitch at troubled Reflecting Pool

Trump has claimed that Republicans lost the midterms because his own name was not on the ballot. Bolton, however, disagrees. He argued that "during the campaign, Trump did everything he could to put himself on the ballot. He told people repeatedly: 'Please pretend that I'm on the ballot.'"

Asked about US Vice President JD Vance's tweet blaming the war in Iran for the Republicans' defeat in the midterms, Bolton called it "a remarkable statement". "It will reverberate through the next two years until the presidential election, if as everyone assumes, Vance runs for the nomination."

For Bolton, Vance saying "I was against this war from the beginning" is a way of breaking ranks with Trump and appealing to the isolationist wing of the Republican Party. His analysis is that the US vice president is trying to send a message ahead of 2028: "I'm more MAGA than the president."