The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

by John Bolton

Trump is Trump. I came to understand that he believed he could run the Executive Branch and establish national-security policies on instinct, relying on personal relationships with foreign leaders, and with made-for-television showmanship always top of mind.

He recounted how with the women he had dated, he never liked to have them break up with him; he always wanted to be the one doing the breaking up. (“Very revealing,” said Kelly when I told him later.)

Trump had said he was willing to reduce the US–South Korean military exercises and had gone off on a riff about how expensive and provocative they were. This may have been the worst point, because North Korea had now just heard from America’s Commander in Chief that our military capabilities on the Peninsula were up for negotiation,

Trump remained, as he had been from the beginning, unwilling or unable to admit any Russian meddling because he believed doing so would undercut the legitimacy of his election and the narrative of the witch hunt against him.

War by radical Islamist terrorists against the United States began long before 9/11 and will continue long after. You can like it or not, but it is reality. Donald Trump didn’t like it, and acted like it wasn’t true.

I’m sensing a pattern with the way he is denying COVID is still a problem (2020-06-26).

Ironically, although the media painted Trump as viscerally anti-Muslim, he never grasped—despite repeated efforts by key allied leaders in Europe and the Middle East and his own advisors to explain it—that Erdogan was himself a radical Islamicist.

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.

It was as though Trump was trying to show he had as much arbitrary authority as Erdogan, who had said twenty years earlier as mayor of Istanbul, “Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it to the stop you want, and then you get off.”

This painful repetition demonstrates that Trump, who endlessly stresses he is the only one who makes decisions, had trouble taking responsibility for them.

Trump’s favorite way to proceed was to get small armies of people together, either in the Oval or the Roosevelt Room, to argue out all these complex, controversial issues. Over and over again, the same issues. Without resolution, or even worse, one outcome one day and a contrary outcome a few days later.

For Xi, personal relationships of any sort did not get in the way of his advancing Chinese interests, just as Putin’s personal relationships didn’t hamper his advancing Russian interests. I don’t think Trump ever got this point.

One highlight came when Xi said he wanted to work with Trump for six more years, and Trump replied that people were saying that the two-term constitutional limit on Presidents should be repealed for him.

He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming US presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.

it’s very nice to see you again,” which I hoped would be true. The press mob came in and out, and Trump asked Kim, “Does the press give you a hard time?” Somewhat stunned, Kim said, “That’s an obvious question. I don’t have that burden,” and laughed.

North Korea had what it wanted from the United States and Trump had what he wanted personally. This showed the asymmetry of Trump’s view of foreign affairs. He couldn’t tell the difference between his personal interests and the country’s interests.

Sondland testified he had said in this same meeting that aid to Ukraine was being tied to the “investigations” Trump and Giuliani wanted, and that his comment had been “duly noted” by Pence. I don’t recall Sondland’s saying anything at that meeting.

conservatives and Republicans should worry about the removal of the political guardrail of Trump having to face reelection.

“I believe former senior officials have virtually an obligation to explain what they did while in government.… It is jarringly apparent to government veterans that those who have never been ‘inside’ find it difficult, if not impossible, to understand what goes on and why.