2019, Carlson lobbied Donald Trump to fire his national security advisor, John Bolton. Carlson said Bolton was "demented" for seeking a military strike against Iran and accused him of undermining Trump by disagreeing publicly with Trump's decisions. Trump fired Bolton on September 10, 2019. Carlson called the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani a "quagmire". He criticized the "chest-beaters" who promote foreign interventions, particularly Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), and asked, "By the way, if we're still in Afghanistan, 19 years, sad years, later, what makes us think there's a quick way out of Iran?" Mexico Carlson supported Trump's expansion of the Mexico–United States barrier, saying a wall was needed to "restore sovereignty" to the border. In a July 2018 interview about Russian involvement in U.S. elections, Carlson claimed that Mexico had interfered in U.S. elections "more successfully" than Russia by "packing our electorate" through mass immigration. This assertion was disputed by journalist Philip Bump, who wrote that the number of Mexicans in the U.S. had decreased since 2009 and asked rhetorically: "What good has it done Mexico to have a number of its citizens move to the United States and gain the right to vote?" In May 2019, Carlson defended Trump's decision to place tariffs on Mexico unless Mexico stopped illegal immigration to the United States. Carlson said, "When the United States is attacked by a hostile foreign power it must strike back, and make no mistake Mexico is a hostile foreign power." Russia Carlson has stated he does not consider Russia a serious threat to the United States. He called for the United States to work with Russia in the Syrian Civil War against a common enemy like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Peter Beinart of The Atlantic said Carlson has been an "apologist for Donald Trump on the Russia scandal". Carlson described the controversy over revelations that Donald Trump Jr. was willing to accept anti-Clinton information from a Russian government official as a "new level of hysteria" and said that Trump Jr. had only been "gossiping with foreigners". In May 2019, after Robert Mueller gave a statement saying the Special Counsel investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 election did not exonerate President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice, Carlson called Mueller "sleazy and dishonest". In February 2020, on his show Carlson called on Trump to pardon Roger Stone, who had been convicted of lying