Bolton reveals Trump sought re-election help from China and promised favours to Erdogan

Donald Trump pleaded with China's leader, Xi Jinping, for help to be re-elected and promised Turkey's president that he would intervene in a US judicial case against a major Turkish state lender.

He also called former Republican president George W Bush “stupid”.

These are some of the explosive details revealed in a coming book by Mr Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton.

Excerpts of the book, The Room Where it Happened, a White House Memoir, were published on Wednesday in US newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Mr Trump met the Chinese premier at a summit last June in Japan.

Mr Bolton writes that he "stunningly turned the conversation to the US presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win".

Mr Trump stressed the importance of American farmers and how "increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat" could affect the election result in the US.

“During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China critics in the United States,” Mr Bolton writes.

He says Mr Trump immediately assumed Mr Xi meant the Democrats.

“I would print Trump’s exact words but the government’s pre-publication review process has decided otherwise,” said Mr Bolton, who is facing a lawsuit from the Department of Justice to block the book's publication.

He claims Mr Trump assured Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he would intervene personally to end a lawsuit in New York against major Turkish lender Halkbank.

In May 2018, Mr Erdogan handed Mr Trump a memo proclaiming the innocence of Halkbank, Mr Bolton writes.

Turkey’s state-owned bank is charged with embezzlement, conspiracy, money laundering, fraud and helping Iran to evade sanctions.

“Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things, explaining that the Southern District prosecutors were not his people, but were Obama people, a problem that would be fixed when they were replaced by his people,” Mr Bolton writes.

He says he was frustrated with Mr Trump’s willingness to appease autocrats and requested a meeting with Attorney General William Barr in 2019 to discuss the matter.

But CNN reported that Mr Barr, under instructions from the president, personally led an effort to negotiate a settlement with the bank that would have allowed it to avoid an indictment after pressure from Mr Erdogan.

Mr Bolton writes that the US President wanted to withdraw from the Middle East and Afghanistan, saying: “I want to get out of everything."

Mr Trump, whose administration has been negotiating with the Taliban, blames Mr Bush for America’s difficulties in Afghanistan.

“This was done by a stupid person named George Bush,” he said.

The book paints a picture of infighting and backstabbing among Mr Trump’s circle of advisers, and claims the president had problems with basic international facts.

“He did not seem to know, for example, that Britain is a nuclear power and asked if Finland is part of Russia,” Mr Bolton writes.

The book is scheduled for release in the US on Tuesday.