John Bolton on his new book "The Room Where it Happened" - FULL INTERVIEW | USA TODAY

Thanks thank you for letting us come talk to you no I'm glad to do it I'm sure you saw that President Trump already has fired back about your book he told the Wall Street Journal you are a liar who everybody in the White House hated and he told Fox News that you were a washed-up guy who broke the law what do you say in response to President Trump you know whoever hired Bolton should get fired may I explain in the book several conversations I had with the president before he offered me to the job with and without other people in the room as he told me frequently he watched Fox News all the time that became clear certainly after I that went to work at the White House he saw me I don't I've been accused of a lot of things over the course of my career I've never been accused of hiding my views so I think he knew what he was getting certainly he could have and did I know call a lot of people and you know ultimately a test of leadership whether you're president or running a small business is you're willing to own the decisions you make and that was his decision he made the decision to hire you you made the decision to go work for him having as you talked about in your book having had many discussions with him did you know what you were getting in in for well I certainly think I knew part of what I was getting in for and I knew of many of the criticisms that had been made of the president certainly within the Republican Party the never Trump errs were were very well known group many of them were my friends I hope I hope it's not the plural entirely but I believed based on my dealings with him and just based on faith in the institution and the presidency that it could be made to work and that there were many threats and challenges facing the United States it's always an honor to serve the country and I was perhaps more optimistic than I should have been people sometimes ask me well knowing everything that you know now would you have made the same decision and I can't honestly answer that question obviously I could do some things differently once I got there maybe that would have made the relationship more productive but I think that the the the main point now is I've had the benefit of watching Donald Trump in action and I think especially in the context of an election year the American people can read the book they will see a lot of facts and the book has opinions and arguments in it that's that's true all books do but I didn't write it for my opinions I wrote it for the facts I could describe and people can read it and they can draw their own conclusions I'm worried that with the 2020 election out of the way if Trump is re-elected that at that point there's no electoral constraint on him any further and I think it's entirely possible that conservatives and Republicans will be very surprised about what a second trump term looks like so they can they can read these stories they can read the the material I lay out which is the president has said on different occasions as either all lies are all classified I suppose we could ask to declassify the lies I'm not sure how that works but people can read the book and they can make up their own line you talk about you're interested in making sure people think about what a second Trump term would look like what would a second Trump term look like do you think I don't think we can have any idea what I saw in 17 months was a president who's doesn't base his actions on philosophy doesn't have grand strategy doesn't follow consistent policies it's like a continuing random walk the theme that emerges I think through his actions though is a total focus on re-election and the feeling that he can't do something as he said in the case of the Korea negotiations that would make him look foolish with the Republican party once he doesn't have to worry about Republican Party support in elections anymore and people start talking to him about his legacy this is a word that that can have an effect on people Democrats might be very surprised at what a second Trump term would look like and Republicans might be even more surprised but it's not because it would be unified on the basis of philosophy but on the opportunistic view of how Donald Trump looks you portray him you know the president had and the dosatron to talk about classified material that they say is in the book but the actual most damaging material in the book isn't anything that might conceivably be classified it's the it's the portrayal of the president of you portray him as being uninformed in curious erratic naive do you think naive is a word that that fits Donald Trump no I think he has a certain low cunning that he's got astute political antennae there's no question about that that that's really my point this is by definition anybody who gets elected president is successful politically but that doesn't lead to any conclusion about what governance looks like it's air every president takes political factors into account and there's no dispute about that and it's perfectly legitimate the issue is whether essentially the only factors you take into account are your own image your own portrayal your own electoral future you've seen a lot of presidents up close you've worked in the past for now four Republican administrations it's Donald Trump fit to be President no I don't think he's confident to be President I think that he's almost proud of not learning much about the subject matter of national security certainly I think that his his political instincts are all about Donald Trump and I think that that leads to a very divisive kind of environment and I think his communications have helped continue to degrade the political society that we have here which was already under pressure this didn't start with the Trump administration but I think he has made it worse and to go back to the statements that he made about me that you began with you know that's how you talk in a leeteuk locker room talk and yet here we have the President of the United States in this case it happens to be attacking me it could be you tomorrow it could be anybody the next day and we become so immune to it that people say well there he goes again that this is not good for civil society in the United States and if Trump is defeated in November the problem won't go away this is but but he has certainly I think made it much worse you've gotten headlines because this is a betrayal from someone in a very senior job who worked for Trump giving us this picture do other senior officials in the White House in the cabinet who have not spoken up agree with you yes I think they do and I talked about some of these episodes in the book I don't mean in to do that in a critical way I had to make some very difficult decisions when I resigned I thought about it several times I go through some of these scenarios in the book and there are many who are already outside the government as well I know they went through the same thing I think many who are still in the administration are going through it on a daily basis and there are a lot of factors to consider but the uniformity of the view with the exception of a very small group around the president of how unsatisfactory his administration is it is really striking and this this is something that not a question of personal loyalty I think when you're honored to serve in a senior position your loyalty is to the Constitution and the American people in my case I've been in politics since I was a teenager working for Barry Goldwater's election and well I've tried to be guided by philosophy I've I've gotten praise from some people I've gotten my share of criticism some would say more than my share of criticism but to me the the lodestar here is philosophy and the thing that perhaps worries me most about the Trump administration is that there's no philosophy at all there are decisions that I agree with that this person can agree with that that person can agree with but despite the the efforts of some outside commentators as I say in the book on a daily basis it's like living inside a pinball machine well in fact the picture that you get of the task you you had clear policy ideas that you wanted to pursue you have had those for many years but the picture you get it is of constantly trying to just avoid catastrophe is that what it was like inside that pinball machine well damage control is always important particularly in national security where so many things happen in so many different ways with no advance warning I think that there were obviously successes that that occurred during my tenure I think getting out of the Iran nuclear deal was a significant success I think getting out of the INF treaty with Russia was a significant success but because of the President substance-free actions in the case of dealing with North Korea or Iran or China or Russia or Turkey things could go up and down in a given day to the point where it was hard to maintain consistency and I think that's not just bad for the future of American national security alone it's bad for relationships with allies who came to wonder when they could ever count on persistence in pursuing a policy and consistency in our alliances which is not to say they're entirely free from causing their own problems I'm not making excuses for the allies I'm trying to say that the best way to guarantee American security through the structure of alliances we have is to lead and lead in a consistent fashion despite the best efforts of officials like yourself do you think Donald Trump has made the world a more dangerous place for Americans well I think there are some as Beks where he has made America safer I think the increase in defense budgets in the first term has been extremely significant and I think there's every prospect in a second term he will cut those budgets because he knows that the core of the Republican Party that supports a very strong defense establishment that deterrence and peace through strength are are more than slogans they reflect how you deal with reality but I think I think in a second term you can be almost certain that he will cut defense budget so I can spend more on infrastructure and other things like that that the the uncertainty and the risks we face around the world during his first term though have been growing significantly and I think you can see that reflected across the issues that I discuss in the book most recently just as an example in the case of North Korea the North Koreans have blown up the liaison offices that they had built north of the Demilitarized Zone to deal with South Korea so you can say well okay so two years were wasted he tried we didn't lose anything I'll tell you what we lost we lost two years in the in the fight against proliferation of nuclear chemical and biological weapons times always on the side of the proliferator and during the two years of these photo opportunities and playing around with kim jong-un the North Korean ballistic missile and nuclear programs proceeded apace so were two years closer to the North Koreans having a capability to hit targets in the United States you can go down the long list with respect to China for example he was so focused on a big trade deal with China that he excused all kinds of other Chinese behavior now in light of the corona virus he's gotten very tough on China and I think that will last right up until November the 3rd and then on November the 4th if he wins I think it's the only a matter of time before he calls Xi Jinping and he says let's talk about that trade deal so you have impeccable Republican credentials are you gonna vote for Trump in November I'm not going to vote for Trump don't get me wrong I'm not going to vote for Biden either I think a number of Republicans who turned against Trump are going to vote for Biden that's obviously their decision but I think it's critical the day after the election whether Trump wins or loses that the battle for the soul of the Republican Party begins and certainly in the national security field I think it's very important that the party come to the view that we need to correct the mistakes that the Trump administration made because the Democratic Party at this point does not really have a strong national security wing there is no scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic Party anymore there's not even a Joe Lieberman wing of the Democratic Party anymore so this is incredibly important as the baby boomers leave the scene and other generations come in who don't remember what a nuclear weapon can do I think for too many Americans nuclear weapons are things they see in grainy 1940s 1950s pictures they don't they don't realize how dangerous the world is out there and the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union obviously gave birth to an enormous false sense of security in a way the world is Jean Kirkpatrick predicted has returned to normal which is great power competition but added in the threat of radical Islamist terrorism and a range of threats from would-be nuclear weapon states so the world is becoming more disorderly and it becomes more disorderly in large part when the United States recedes and that's what Trump did Obama was telling many of the same things and one of the attractions to me of of trying to get into what what I hoped would be a Republican administration that would sail down the mainstream of Republican foreign policy was correcting those mistakes from the Obama years so you're not going to vote for Trump you're not gonna vote for Biden who you're gonna vote for I'm gonna write in the name of a conservative Republican yet to be determined I honestly think that the most important priority this November for Republicans needs to be keeping control of the Senate and while I don't think the presidential election is a foregone conclusion by any stretch of the imagination I think it's a coin toss at this point I'm very much afraid that that the effect of Trump on the electorate even if he wins even if he gets 270 electoral votes may be negative enough to sink enough Republican Senate candidates that we lose control of the Senate so if I can get past the book launch and and and get back to focusing on electoral politics for part of my time I want to do whatever I can to maintain Republican control of the Senate if Republicans lose control of the Senate in November will that be because of Trump I think it's entirely possible that the the the way Trump won reelection in 2016 and the way he could well win win re-election in 2020 was winning as the Constitution provides more than 270 electoral votes but his popular vote totals in in the country as a whole and then many of the hotly contested states could be at a level where where it has a negative effect on Republican Senate candidates it's a very different calculus for these candidates do they support him strongly do they try and distance themselves from them and I think that if they're not careful they could they could go even if Trump got support enough support for him to be reelected you're not gonna vote for Trump you're not gonna vote for Biden but thinking about the bet and you're gonna write in a conservative to be determined who probably is not going to win my plan is to hope for a miracle for the good for the good of the country and the good of the party you have so long served are those interests better served by a Biden victory so that you can move into the post Trump era I don't think so in 2016 having heard in advance what a trump presidency would look like I still thought it was worth risk to vote for Trump against Hillary Clinton and I did I voted for Trump in 2016 and and that's why I went on to to serve in the administration I thought we could make it right and I've concluded and that's basically what is laid out one fact after another in the book is why that was wrong so I I do not accept that you have to vote for one candidate or the other that was not the position I held in 2016 I've changed my mind but I don't think that at this point you you can say with confidence what the democratic party is going to be whether it's the old moderate I mean using the word moderate now in a way nobody does nobody would have imagined 25 or 30 years ago or whether the more radical left-wing elements take over it's it's a it's an election with no good choices from my perspective you've now seen President Trump up close in the most private of consultations do you think there is any possibility that he will try to delay or dispute the November election I don't I haven't seen any indication that he's thinking that but but you'll recall in the 2016 debates before the Republican nomination he would not agree not to cannot - he would not agree to accept the results now ironically of course it was Hillary Clinton who didn't accept the results quickly it's different I think when you're sitting in the White House I hope it is and I think at that point if overwhelming indeed 100 percent - one person of the adherence of the Republican Party don't tell him you've lost get out then then we would be in serious trouble but I don't think there's any chance of that happening I think that one of the mistakes the Democrats made in the impeachment was making no effort to reach out on the Republican side I think it doomed their efforts to failure the reason Richard Nixon was forced from office was when Republicans went and said time is up and I feel as much as I can feel certain about anything but that would happen even after a close election impeachment you write in such you have such an interesting perspective on impeachment you accused Democrats of impeachment malpractice which is a wonderful phrase because they kept the focus narrowly on Ukraine because they hurried it along because they wanted to get it out of the way before the election year you saw to first talk about Ukraine though you declined to testify Democrats have been very critical of that if you had testified either because House Democrats got you to testify because the Senate Republicans agreed to subpoena you and in the trial what the outcome have been different I don't think it would have been different at all because of the way the house advocates of impeachment structured their campaign and if you go back to September of 2019 I've resigned on September the 10th the whistleblower I think came out the next day the although the the the fact of the whistleblowers complaint had existed I didn't know about it at the time I resigned Trump released the Ukraine money on September the 11th the whistleblower emerged things started exploding and almost overnight the Democrats were on the way to impeachment because of Ukraine what I was doing honestly was leaving the government putting my life back together and they fixed on a strategy which I think was based on the failure of the Russia collusion model they saw a Ukraine as a quick and dirty way to get a majority for impeachment in the House of Representatives based on evidence they thought sufficient but not overwhelming at all and that they didn't look at any of the potential issues beyond Ukraine what that did and I think this is perfectly visible in the hearings of the intelligence and Judiciary Committees was they drove Republicans into their corner and even Republicans who might have been sympathetic to trying to hear and understand the full context of Ukraine and then possibly other shoes we're in a defensive crouch it guaranteed that the vote on the House floor on the articles of impeachment would be essentially party line and that in turn guaranteed that the vote in the Senate was going to be on party lines so that at some point people tuned out to anything else and I think whatever I had to say in January that would have gotten lost in the shuffle I don't agree with the notion that the only legitimate constitutional strategy to deal with Donald Trump was in the minds of the House Democratic leadership we're all entitled to come up with our own strategy and my view was that given their malpractice in the handling of impeachment the the institution to put our faith in is the American people and so it may not take a village but it does take a book to put together all of these points for people to consider and they'll be debate over them and so on and so forth that's fine all I ask is that people look at these facts and decide whether they are meaningful and and that I think is the one of the virtues if the house had taken its time and impeachment hearings continued and were going on even today that would be an entirely good thing for the country this the Ervin committee in Watergate days proceeded in a bipartisan fashion it took a long time the process of impeachment went on nearly two years and before it finally succeeded the Democrats weren't hearing any of that who is a big big mistake on their part do you think if you had been in the US Senate would you have thought that the Ukraine matter was an impeachable offense that you would have voted to convict Donald Trump on that issue well I think I probably would have although honestly we still don't know everything there is to know about about Ukraine and a lot of conduct can be reprehensible without being impeachable and I could certainly understand people who took that point of view a number of Republicans did but the issue is making sure that presidents don't take the power of the government and abuse it for their own personal interest whether it's their own political interest or economic interest or what-have-you and and I think that's very much the concern that I had looking at the pattern of conduct that Donald Trump exhibited across a number of fronts that I discuss in the book that had had there been an impeachment process that took the time to say look let's let's look into these areas let's not get into a fight with Republicans immediately let's see if there's any common ground and and not twerk ourselves around the Democratic presidential nomination schedule I mean I know that was inconvenient for the Democrats but we're talking about the power of impeachment which is probably the house of representatives gravest constitutional responsibility it isn't that worth taking time when I was walking on my houses wearing my husband said you know I don't think Bolton's testimony would have mattered impeachment but it may matter in the election so in terms of affecting Donald Trump's tenure in office this is a more influential way to go do you think that's true yes I think that is correct you know the the impeachment mechanism is is the is the guardrail in the Constitution that's supposed to be used only in extreme circumstances the real guardrail in the in the Constitution is election seeing what the people actually believe and and I think that could well prove itself out here's if your book which has already gotten just it's not published yet in this guy's enormous amounts of attention if your book contributes to the defeat of Donald Trump in November is that okay with you I have tried to advance my philosophy during my entire political career and I don't consider one person to embody that philosophy it's certainly not Donald Trump but one of the lessons I learned from my first job in the government in Washington when I was a White House summer intern before became a well-known position as I worked for Spiro Agnew who was I was from Baltimore Maryland Agnew was my governor I thought it was a very gracious man a strong supporter of his until after my internship ended and I found out what he did on the side and that to me was a strong lesson in not putting your faith in one person ultimately it's the philosophy that counts I'm not looking forward to four years of Abidin administration and some of the advisers he may have around him which is why I think emphasis on keeping the Senate is so important but I think if you look at the long-term interest of national security in the United States we cannot leave it in Donald Trump's hands amazing stories about president Trump's behavior with other leaders including leaders who are adversaries not our allies this amazing story about his comments to XI of China about helping him out in the election in his reelection bid is that an impeachable offense well I think it it goes to the question of fitness for office and you know it's it should not be a binary choice that the only way you get rid of an unfit president is through impeachment that's not what the framers intended and why why that has to be the the kind of Santaquin on that if you don't favor impeachment somehow you're morally bankrupt that the issue is is whether you have trust in the people ultimately and I think for the good of the country the the the dangers of the impeachment process argue for prudence before invoking it and and let's ask what is the outcome of the effort to impeach Donald Trump you know some people said well he's B's impeached forever yes he's also acquitted forever so by going through that process do you constrain his future behavior or do you enable it I it's beyond dispute that Trump has been enabled by this which means the last resort is what happens this November you were concerned enough to go talk to the Attorney General what did he tell you what was his response well he didn't he didn't give he was in the listening mode I think that's fair to say and I understood that I said the same thing to White House Counsel sip baloney and what I was trying to do was avoid doing other people's jobs for them I gave them the information and I counted on them to do what they were responsible to do do do you think attorney general Barr is doing a good job as Attorney General well since he's litigating against me at the moment it's probably probably better that I not get into that but this is a this is a circumstance where people should look at the president's behavior and consider what it means when he intervenes in individual legal cases on on on whatever side he might choose to because the rule of law I think has to be even-handed and when it's not even handed I think it deal legitimizes our law enforcement institutions which are under particular strain already at the moment just another senior administration official Mike Pompeo not a happy not happy with you this morning didn't note that you say he sent you gave you in that meeting did you keep it no I you know I think he wrote it on his we had pads in pharmacy I think I wrote it on his pad and showed it to me and I had nodded my head and he took it back I think that's what happened have you heard from any of these people since the contents of the book came out well I don't want to play is it bigger than a breadbox with you so I'll respectfully duck that question okay all right I'll take that as a yes why why do you think they the the Justice Department just filed these suits against you for the book I think because of the president's insistence you know Don McGann who was the first counsel to the president in the Trump administration used to refer the president King Kong and and I think you're getting that reaction as we've explained Chuck Cooper my attorney had a great up ed in the Wall Street Journal a few days back explaining the clearance process we went through I didn't write the manuscript that had any classified material in it in my view was never my intention to disclose classified information I had plenty to write about without doing that I didn't really feel I had to submit the book for pre-publication review for that reason but I did out of an abundance of caution we went through an arduous four-month process and the government itself in its complaint agrees that there was no more classified information in the manuscript and then they went back to do a second review and I think what that is about is the president having said publicly having addressed the anchors of all the major networks saying I don't want that book out before the election what worries him about your book the truth and they've pursued these sue collections with no real expectation of succeeding right I mean well I think they they want to they want to try and stretch out whatever they can I think the main thing that the president wants to avoid is the book coming out before the election this this this has nothing to do with classified information it's it's the it's the revelation about the President himself that that bothers them he's not worried about foreign governments reading this book he's worried about the American people reading this book that ship has sailed well I you know we're in the middle of the litigation now and and we'll see how it comes out but I think that prior restraints under the Constitution are clearly forbidden by the First Amendment and only in the most extraordinary circumstances which this book is extraordinary for Donald Trump but but not for the national security of the United States I think very few people think the book isn't legal but there are some people who think it is inappropriate that it is inappropriate for a very senior official to write such damaging things about a sitting president pretty rare how do you respond to those critics well first it's not rare at all Bob Gates wrote a book about his time and Secretary of Defense published during the Obama administration he was criticized for writing about Hillary Clinton in the middle of her presidential campaign the fact is as long as history is a continuous stream books like this are always inconvenient for somebody and the the real issue in my view and I wrote about this in 2014 when I wrote a book review of Gates's book and I put long quotation from this book review in my book is that senior government officials I believe have an obligation to the American people to tell what it's like behind the scenes because with all due respect to the news profession you just get glimpses and bits and pieces of it the the people should see how their government works transparency is not a bad thing and the idea that there's a no merit a code of silence and politics has never really existed that point out that in George Washington's administration Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were going at each other tooth and toenail they they even had competing newspapers funded in part by federal government money and somehow poor George Washington muddled through so we have controversy in American politics we're not going to get away from it and this is something again the the ultimate judgment here is for the people and I'm content to let them read it and they'll make up their mind some Democrats make an opposite argument about the book which was not that it's inappropriate to tell these behind the scenes this is behind the scenes picture but that you should have done it faster that you should have done it as soon as you were out of government when the impeachment process was going on Adam Schiff tweeted yesterday Boulton saved it for a book he may be an author but he's no patriot do they have any point no I don't think so I think look the Adam Schiff is one of those responsible for the catastrophic failure of the impeachment effort so of course he's he's upset by by what he's now learning but you could not give testimony of the kind that this book contains and if anybody believes you can go back and watch the hearings again and see what they were like the the the issue here is how you bring these facts to the attention of the American people and Schiff had his view and he proved wrong he failed I think the the measure of success or failure of my book is how many people consider the facts and they will make up their reaction a lot of Republicans for example I think will read this book and vote for Trump anyway and that's certainly their decision I just want them to know what they're voting for actually I think one thing that will surprise some readers is the substance of the book you know the long discussion of policy it's not just all I mean it's in that's sort of an aside that's not a question but I think that's that's true it's really a very subjective book couple President Trump now can I make a point on that the the reason the book is substantive is it's important to give it in the historical context I think a lot of books about the president written by journalists again you'll you'll forgive me or that they think everything is personalities and it's all what is the element of scandal here and what is the unflattering portrayal of this person my objective for history is to show how close policy came too near disastrous outcomes because the president didn't address American national security issues in a sustained coherent fashion that is the main point so the substance some people may say what's all this substance doing in here I don't want to read about the INF treaty or cyber warfare or anything like that but but that's the real key here it is is the administration keeping America safe is the administration keeping America state no I'm very worried about we in in the post Cold War environment many people believe that the victory over communism meant that we were we were in the broad sunlit uplands we didn't have any more threats to worry about in fact the exact opposite is true this is what it means to say we're now in normal times we face strategic threats from Russia and China we--the raised faced immediate threats from terrorists we from proliferators of weapons of mass destruction from a whole range of other potential adversaries and difficulties so actually unlike Cold War days the range of threats that we face the number of contingencies both political and military and economic that we have to deal with are greater than during the Cold War so what that means is in terms of presidential leadership you need more sustained more comprehensive thinking not less and and that's what worries me about Trump he just he doesn't focus on these issues in a systematic way and even when he does focus on a country like China and and does demonstrate I think some understanding of the connection between economic strength and military and political strength the only issue that really engages him is trade he wants that big trade deal and everything else is secondary that's a big problem the criticism you make of journalists is one that you also make of Trump so that you see everything as a celebrity in terms of personalities and matter of celebrity not a matter of policy or the bigger context of things but you've met with many foreign leaders over the years including with President Trump during your your time in service tell me what you think briefly a couple of them what they think of Trump what does for instance Putin think of Trump I don't think he believes Trump is serious and I think that provides opportunities I would say this with respect to all of them really not just glad Amir Putin provides them opportunities which is why they're so eager to meet with him one on one but it also means that that it's hard for anybody else to carry on substantive discussions because there's always a question whether the particular individual even somebody who's thought to be close to the president will necessarily be representing the view he has not on the day they're talking but on the next day and it's the uncertainty volatility scattershot approach to decision-making that whatever the substantive outcome I think leaves America more vulnerable and so what that says to foreign leaders is you can hardly count on anything here and it it tends to drive them away from the United States because they can't see with certainty how we will really react now I think this is repairable after one term of Trump I'm not sure Joe Biden is the person to repair it but I don't I don't think we're on an unchangeable slide into second class status I think it would be worse after a second Trump term but it goes to the question that we just have to have a philosophical debate within the Republican Party and get ourselves back on track and the country itself has work that will have to be done as the threats from Russia and China have continued and expanded as the threats of proliferation have continued and as the threats of terrorism as we see in Afghanistan for example have not diminished one of the things that continues to perplex me as president Trump's longstanding attitude toward Russia back from the campaign the platform process at the convention his actions as president what accounts for that attitude do you think well I think part of it is at least I can speak to the to the time in the White House is that the Russia collusion allegation raised against him that made it very hard for him to admit that there was Russian interference in the election at all because if he had said if he had admitted it it would have given rise to the implication that his election was illegitimate now I I don't think there is evidence that the the Russian involvement had an impact on the election itself one way or the other but I also don't think there's any doubt the Russians have been trying to cause mischief as has China and have Iran and North Korea and others the mischief they want to cause is to reduce our faith in our own institutions to get us going at each other's throats if that's their objective and I think it is they're doing a pretty good job and it's really very frightening so I described in the book in a chapter called 'the warning russia what we did in cyberspace to give us new capabilities to prevent what i said before i joined the administration was an act of war against the united states for trying to interfere in our elections do you think there's some more fundamental personal reason some financial reason or other reason for the president's attitude toward Russia I don't know of any I I think it's not even an attitude toward Russia I think it's an attitude toward Vladimir Putin and it's it's of a piece with his view of other leaders you know I think he likes to be a big guy he sits down with other big guys and the two of them work it out this is look there's an important personal element in international relations between the leaders of countries but Putin and ji Jinping both said to him very clearly look you represent American interest we represent our interests they understand that I'm not sure Donald Trump does what do you think she thinks of Trump I think much much the same as Putin I think he sees that he can take advantage of him and they're they're happy to have the negotiations directly with Trump now China's so bureaucratic that that it doesn't normally work out that way but I think that that they they see his fascination with the deal this this desire to have a deal almost without regard to what the terms are and the idea that if if they can purchase more agricultural products that will bring the deficit down and make Trump happy seems to them an easy thing to do we don't really have a clear deal with China now the basic structural issues and the way they manipulate the World Trade Organization and the International economic order remain unaddressed but I think despite the hostility that the president shown toward China now because of the virus if he wins re-election they'll be back talking about the big trade deal I want to talk about president Trump's year this has been a tough year for a president Trump in a couple ways first in his handling of the coronavirus you write some about handling pandemics in your book although of course the front of Cobo 19 didn't erupt until after you you laughter you say the NSC biosecurity team functioned exactly as it was supposed to it was the chair behind the resolute desk that was empty tell us about how you think Trump has handled this crisis for America well I think he's handled it very badly and it's not to say that every decision has been wrong I think this is a mistake Trump critics make and it's the reverse is the mistake Trump supporters make everything he does is right or everything he does is wrong is is not accurate and I think it clouds the debate and and makes it hard to have rational discourse but in the beginning in January when media were had later reported the the directors at the NSC responsible for looking for this sort of thing and others in the government were saying this pandemic is bad news and we've got to get ready for they were saying that in early January and yet the White House not only didn't do anything the president was saying the exact opposite that's why there was an empty chair in the Oval Office why was he saying there's nothing to worry about I think two reasons number one he didn't want to hear anything bad about China he didn't want to hear anything bad about GGN paying his buddy he didn't want to hear anything bad that would affect Chinese economic performance that might prevent them from making the big trade deal or honoring their commitments to buy Amer can agricultural products he didn't want to hear anything that would disrupt his quest for the big deal that's number one and number two he didn't want to hear anything bad about the American economy didn't want to hear that they've got a big problem here that could not only affect China epidemiologically and economically but could do the same in the United States because his ticket to re-election he has seen not without justification as a strong US economy so that holding your hands over your ears which is what he was doing for the first several months and he and several senior members of the administration went on set it's under control it's not spreading it's going to magically disappear people people have made up a long lists of those things reflect that although the institutions of government we're saying sending up flares and red flags and saying this is getting more and more serious the the the person in the Oval Office did not want to hear it let's talk about the other crisis he's faced black lives matters protests a lot of that a little outside of your purview but we have seen this split developed between the president and our top military leaders in the wake of that Lafayette Square photo-op both the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs kind of apologizing for participating in that does this does this concern you is this something the Americans shouldn't worry about well I think I think that is an example of the larger point that I try and demonstrate in the book which is that everything in the administration is at risk of being torqued around Donald Trump's personal needs he wanted that photo-op holding up the Bible in front of st. st. John's Church I think it could turn out to be a classic mistake to have done that but Secretary Esper general Milley and others who ended up marching over there were put in an incredibly awkward position and I don't envy them the fact that they had to go through that that's not what a president should do if he wants the photo-op he doesn't have take an army with an army of people his entourage this is not a european-style government if the president wants a photo-op stand there by yourself this happens over and over again this fusing of legitimate government interest in Donald Trump's personal interest and and he just has enormous difficulty separating the two so I think that the the handling of of the of the current situation has reflected that this has been about his re-election what looks good for his re-election and so when general mattis with whom I had a dispute or two during our time together talked about the president dividing the country I think that's a view that many many people hold that it's not simply about donald trump's reelection or i could just make the very practical political argument that if he acted like a leader of all the people heaven forbid it might actually enhance his chances of being reelected would you have walked over across the square with him that night you know i have to say in all honesty I probably would have and I would have regretted it later that's part of the problem of being in the Trump administration and it's why I went through a lot of thinking pro and con before I resigned I know others who are also alumni the Trump administration went through that same sort of thinking and people who are in it now are trying to balance what what is the right thing to do so I don't I don't really want to second-guess anybody this is a very hard calculation they're a place to be in do is you're like a club of former Trump aids learned like a support group of some sort no but you know we might need a stadium to do it it's I mean it seems like there's a consistent even if you people with whom you battled inside there's sort of a consistent story winter out yeah well you know I think the historians are going to have to look at the number of people who cycled through and if there's a second term I mean the numbers really you will need a a football stadium to hold it in its it's not good for the management of the country it's not good for the management of government when when you lose continuity when the president doesn't have enough faith in his own personnel decisions to to see them through times when there might be disagreements I mean it is a part of his management style which has made it very difficult for a lot of people is that he disparages his his advisors one to another and I recount some stories of that in the book I've got one note here that I we haven't gotten to Ivanka and Jared well I I really don't want to get into discussing the family I talk about specific cases in the book mostly about Jared because of his the role that the president gave him in a number of circumstances but the actor here the decision-maker is the president and he's the one responsible for I think making the mistake of having his family too much involved in government I could make the same criticism of Bill Clinton giving Hillary Clinton responsibility for health care reform which crashed and burned you can't fire your wife in that circumstance I think the anti-nepotism rules while originally designed to prevent favoritism within families actually have a meaning that maybe originally wasn't perceived but that it's just better not to have your family and Bob we're not above the family store here and for for the sake of the government itself there's there there are lessons to be learned ambassador thank you so much thank you for your time no thank you for coming by you

Channel: USA TODAY

Views: 314,446

Keywords: usa today, usa today news, John Bolton, Donald Trump, White House, National Security Advisor, Trump administration, foreign relations, foreign affairs, geopolitics, john bolton interview, john bolton, john bolton book, john bolton full interview, john bolton book revelation, john bolton interview full, john bolton stephen colbert, john bolton interview martha raddatz

Id: l9uaz0WN1PM

Length: 53min 46sec (3226 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 26 2020