National Security Advisor and mustache conveyance mechanism John Bolton got into a testy exchange with the White House press corps on Tuesday when he was asked whether or not he’d listened to the alleged audio recording of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the hands of a Saudi assassination squad.
“No, I haven’t listened to it,” Bolton said, before explaining that despite his, y’know, job, he couldn’t think of a single reason why he should have to listen to a tape featuring the death of a U.S. resident, one which even the CIA claims was ordered at the hands of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Besides, the Islamophobe insisted, it was all in different language anyway.
“I guess I should ask you: Why do you think I should [listen to the tape]?” Bolton asked the press corps. “What do you think I’ll learn from it?”
After asking how many people in the White House press corps speak Arabic, a reporter incredulously asked, “You don’t have access to an interpreter?”
“I’m just trying to make the point that everybody who says ‘Why don’t you listen to the tape,’” Bolton continued, “Unless you speak Arabic, what are you going to get from it?”
When asked whether he’d read a translated transcript, which Bolton said just seconds earlier that he would rather do instead of listening to the tape, the national security adviser pivoted to President Donald Trump’s earlier “Oh well, shit happens!” statement, in which he essentially gave the Saudi government a free pass for murdering a U.S. resident.
Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I sure do feel safer knowing that the guy who has the ear of the president on national security issues is so viscerally opposed to being exposed to different languages.