Asked about the news that a Dutch court has convicted populist lawmaker Geert Wilders of “inciting discrimination,” former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton told Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Friday that he sees the trial and verdict as “part of a phenomenon we see throughout the West of people who are really trying to suppress speech.”
Bolton continued, “It should recall why the First Amendment is so important in America. It’s not enough to say I think we should have free speech except when it’s offensive, or that we should have free speech except when it’s too extreme. The whole point of the free speech doctrine is you are defending the right of people to speak with whom you not only disagree, but with whom you profoundly disagree.”
As for Trump’s recent phone call with Taiwan, Bolton said, “It was absolutely the right thing to do.”
“Taiwan has been a friend and ally of the United States,” continued Bolton. “We have treated them very badly over the years,” he added, citing “a long list of the ways we have mistreated them.”
Bolton said he thought Washington was upset about the call, in large part, because Trump took it without consulting the State Department. “This man thinks for himself,” he said.
As for America’s One China policy, “It absolutely is not a violation of the One China policy,” insisted Bolton. “Moreover, as significant and beneficial as I think the call was, it doesn’t necessarily foretell what comes next. There’s no inevitability here. People ought to chill out a little bit, calm down and see what happens.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
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