The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

by John Bolton

One attraction of being National Security Advisor is the sheer multiplicity and volume of challenges that confront you. If you don’t like turmoil, uncertainty, and risk—all while being constantly overwhelmed with information, decisions to be made, and the sheer amount of work, and enlivened by international and domestic personality and ego conflicts beyond description—try something else.

As time passed, however, Trump became more certain of himself, the axis of adults departed, things fell apart, and Trump was surrounded only by “yes men.”

Charles Krauthammer, a sharp critic of his, told me he had been wrong earlier to characterize Trump’s behavior as that of an eleven-year-old boy. “I was off by ten years,” Krauthammer remarked. “He’s like a one-year-old. Everything is seen through the prism of whether it benefits Donald Trump.”

Trump, and he asked, “What else would you be interested in?” I answered, “National Security Advisor.” Kelly broke his silence to underline that that job did not require Senate confirmation, and Trump asked happily, “So I don’t have to worry about those clowns up there?” and both Kelly and I said, “Right.”