“Well, I guess, I wish we had some more Rough Riders in Congress than we do. But better late than never, still works,” Bolton said. “Inexorably, the political dynamic is changing for Trump, he is diminishing right in front of us, he is administration is like a cube of sugar in a hot cup of tea, it’s disappearing before our eyes. And on January 20th, he’ll be gone. He won’t disappear from political life. But that is a reality that, I think, will change a lot of Republican attitudes in Congress.”

Bolton, however, pushed back on the idea that his party was signaling its broad discontent with democracy for its institutional embrace of Trump’s legal campaign to throw out millions of certified votes so he could remain in power.

“I think the comments people are making about threats to democracy are overwrought,” he claimed. “I don’t think that Donald Trump is smart enough to be a successful authoritarian. I just think it’s embarrassing for Republicans who keep this up.”