The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

by John Bolton

On March 6, I had yet another meeting with Trump. Waiting in the West Wing lobby, I watched on television as reporters asked why he thought the North was now ready to negotiate, and Trump replied happily, “Me.” I hoped he understood North Korea truly feared that he, unlike Obama, was prepared if necessary to use military force. I went to the Oval at about 4:40, once again sitting in front of the completely clean Resolute desk. Trump said to me, just as Kelly entered, “Did I ask for this meeting or did you?” I said I had, and he responded, “I thought I had, but I’m glad you came in because I wanted to see you.” We started off talking about North Korea, and I explained I thought Kim Jong Un was trying to buy time to finish the relatively few (albeit critical) tasks still necessary to achieve a deliverable nuclear-weapons capability. That meant that Kim Jong Un now especially feared military force; he knew economic sanctions alone wouldn’t prevent him from reaching that goal. I wasn’t quite sure Trump got the point, but I also raised reports of North Korea’s selling chemical-weapons equipment and precursor chemicals to Syria, likely financed by Iran.28 If true, this linkage could be pivotal for both North Korea and Iran, showing just how dangerous Pyongyang was: now selling chemical weapons, soon enough selling nuclear weapons. I urged him to use this argument to justify both exiting the Iran nuclear deal and taking a harder line on North Korea. Kelly agreed and urged me to k...