Emily Maitlis expertly takes down former Trump adviser John Bolton in brutal interview

People are praising Emily Maitlis's "exceptional" takedown of Trump's former National Security Advisor.

John Bolton resigned from Trump's administration in 2019, and went on to write a tell-all book about the presidency. Despite this, he declined to testify at Trump's impeachment trial, which Maitlis asked him about, saying: "You were begged to do your duty as a citizen, you refused to tell the American people what you saw and what knew."

Flustered by Maitlis's line of questioning on BBC Newsnight, he asked her:

Tell me something, do you work for free? Of course you [take a salary]. That's why I got reimbursed for the book.

He also admitted that party politics influenced his choices, saying:

I am not obliged to follow Nancy Pelosi's orders. I think she and the House Democrats made a severe mistake and the consequences of their mistake were to empower Trump. I guess you don't see that point.

Elsewhere, Maitlis remained calm and collected as Bolton shouted at her.

Let me finish. Let me finish! [...] It may be inconvenient to you as a television reporter who wants answers that last for 30 seconds but what I tried to do was lay out [Trump's corruption] for voters to read.

Bolton's book, The Room Where It Happened, claims that Trump asked China's president Xi Jinping for help winning the 2020 election and that he expressed interest in serving more than two terms.

Trump responded by saying that the book is made up of "lies and fake stories".

While Bolton's book has been praised for exposing Trump and his administration, Bolton himself has been criticised for failing to testify against the president. Some have also argued that he helped to moderate Trump's image during his tenure as National Security Advisor because he steered the president away from some of his more extreme impulses.

Bolton rejected any claim that he passed up on doing his "duty as a citizen" to "tell the American people what you saw and what you knew" though, and criticised advocates of impeachment for doing a "terrible job" and making the situation "much worse" by failing to secure a conviction in the Senate.

Maitlis was praised for an "outstanding example of holding those with power to account".

Bolton, meanwhile, was criticised for coming across as "self-serving" and "belligerent".

Maitlis proved once again why she's the queen of interviews.