Would think you would have criminal problems, i would hope so. Good afternoon i am bob costa, a National Political reporter at the Washington Post. Today i am joined by ambassador john bolton, the former National Security advisor and he is the author of the room where it happened, white house memoir. Investoambassador bolton welcom. To keep her happy me. Lets begin with opening of your book, detailed recounting of how you join the Trump Administration. Why did you join the administration in the first place given what you wrote in the book about the president s behavior largely know beforehand. I had the honor of serving a prior republican ministrations at the state department and Justice Department. I felt it was a time of great challenge for the United States, i thought the prior eight years of the Obama Administration had seen a lot of misguided policies and had weak interNational Security posture and i hoped i can make a contribution, i was obviously aware of many things that had been said and written about donald trump, but i had also had a number of meetings with him where we discussed my views and his views on foreign and defense policy. Before the election, after he took office. He certainly had watched me on fox news, nobody has ever accused me of being shy about stating my views. I thought he had a pretty good idea where i stood and i hoped what was in the press and the gossip columns about him would turn out to be overstated and wrong and we would find a way to make this work in a sustained and coherent fashion and that i can make a contribution. That was my motivation and i recount in the book what actually happened and whether or not that turned out to be true. Speaking about what actually happened, when was the first moment you came to the conclusion that President Trump was unfit . It did not pop out like a light bulb turning on, it was a cumulation of many, many meetings, conversations, things that played out over sustained period of time, there were some successes in the early days, roughly a month after i joined the administration, trump was able to announce the u. S. Withdrawal from the ironically or deal which i thought was badly misguided initiative. It was something that he tried to do from the beginning of his term but had not been able to do. I felt this was something he clearly singled during the campaign that he wanted to do, it was consistent with my longstanding view of the 2015 contrary to american interests. Despite increasingly troubling signs, there were also positive things, i tried to be as accurate as i can in describing both sides of the equation. It is more an issue of the evidence mounting over time then one immediate moment. Do you remember any moment that you said to yourself, this man is unfit to serve as commanderinchief early on . The most disturbing moment in the early days was the nato summit in brussels, i described this at some length in the book, he really was very close to withdrawing from nato. I did not think this was a show or hoopla, i thought he really was on the verge of doing that, i thought for all the nato needs, substantial reform and trumpets correct that our nato allies have not over the years born their fair share of the cost and the answer is not to withdraw, the oceans do not protect america like they did two or three centuries ago and nato in my judgment is the most successful Political Alliance in history. So with mike pompeo and jim mattis who were also there in brussels and john kelly the white house chief of staff, we all worked in various ways and i recount the stories in the book to help persuade the president , not actually to withdraw, it turned out he did not withdraw. The whole incident which played out over a 48 hour period was very unnerving to me. I think as i indicate the first point after i joined the white house that i thought i would have to resign. But i do think there is a responsibility when you go into a position like that, the president makes a decision nobody is ever under any allusion to the contrary that you keep trying to provide advice and in that case i actually thought maybe this is some confirmation that i cant make a contribution. Despite the narrowness that actually helped encourage me too stay on longer. You right throughout the book about pure alarm about the president s policy position in statements both publicly and privately. Did you ever speak up and confront the president about the conduct in the behavior that you write about testing legal bounds . We certainly spoke about it, the president is very good at rejecting criticism he does not want to hear. And some of the areas that i thought were legally questionable, it did brief the counsel to the president and the attorney general, that is they responsibly in the field them in on what i knew and what i thought was required. But the service in the white house itself was not like the west wing. They are not dramatic confrontations with the president at least any that dont result in 24 hours later. There were things that we try to do in ukraine for example to ensure that the Security Assistance that was held up was delivered but it is not the kind of environment, as in almost any office where you look to confront your boss was something and those are the circumstances we all worked out, there is a large Alumni Association of people who have left the Trump Administration, they left at different times for different reasons, its a very personal decision on how you address the problem such as a president presented, how long you try to address and what circumstances you finally depart under. You are a lawyer your entire career, you did go to the white House Counsel in the attorney general with your concerns. But to your point do you have any regret that you did not have a counsel with the president on National Security on legal matters and tell him to his face that you had severe concerns about his conduct about what he was doing . One of the criticisms that i received and im receiving even today, the book is coming out and i tried to do too many peoples jobs for them and i shouldve just done my job. I tried to respect the fact that im not an investigator, and plenty of other things to do and i referred this to the lawyers and i told others on the nsc staff to talk to the lawyers and i told other white house advisors of my concern. But i try to focus on my job, it is easy from the outside to say that was wrong and maybe it was a mistake. I can only tell you what i did, for the purpose of trying to move the country and the white house in the right direction in terms of politics. Maybe it was a mistake as you reflect back . It could be. Im certainly aware i made mistakes and i try to discuss some of them in the book, it was hardly perfect and there were things that i couldve done better, im not sure on this score that it wouldve shifted the president s view on all of this in part because hes hearing from 70 people from the outside who did not understand how the government was actually run that were influencing him. It is not always clear as events go on that something is merging on illegal, it may simply be unacceptable, unprofessional, president ial. Knowing at the time ukraine is a good example, exactly what was happening in a wide variety of areas that i or others may not be aware of, you do not have the full picture. We receive many questions from post readers and they often echo Terry Rosenberg of massachusetts, your lack of testimony and given your dire view of the president , why was an imperative that you testify before the house. I address this question at length in the book and let me try to summarize it here. I believe the advocates of impeachment in the house conducted their impeachment effort in a very misguided way, i think they made a huge strategic mistake, i described them as committing impeachment malpractice. We have history in nixon and watergate to look back to and you can see even though nixon did not go through the full impeachment process, he resigned and what happened, the advocates of impeachment who were all democrats at the beginning, they built a consensus including a number of republicans that his conduct constituted high crimes and misdemeanors. If you look at the urban committee for example, democrats worked with howard baker republicans for the evidence and facts of what happened at watergate. Thats not what the democrats did, they acted in a manner that was perceived and i think rightly was understood to be partisan, they drove House Republicans into a house corner and that resulted in partisan proceedings in the house and almost partyline Impeachment Vote and therefore pretty much guaranteed the same sort of thing in the senate. If the goal was not just getting a boat that impeached trump in the house but removing him from office, they didnt just about 180 degrees the wrong way. I saw that and thought jumping off the cliff with them was not only a mistake but whatever else i had to say wouldve gotten lost in the shuffle of their mistakes and i think that is to be regretted but the democratic strategy was devised by them and implemented by them before they told it to anybody else as far as i know. Your decision changed history and i hear your political argument there, your legal argument, your historical argument, at the same time did you ever grapple with the moral and personal obligation as a citizen to speak up . I grapple with the extensively and asked myself what my duty of a citizen was and what would be effective, Ronald Reagan used to say when i served at the Justice Department and the reagan administration, im not jumping off the cliff with all flags flying. And i thought what the advocates of impeachment were doing was pretty much exactly that. I think they were virtue signaling. I think they made a strategic mistake for the country, their argument was trump will be forever impeached and that will be a constraint on his behavior, that is exactly the opposite, he was not just impeached, he was acquitted and their actions did not form a deterrent against future similar conduct by trump, they enabled it. I thought that was a mistake and i thought in any event the time really to discuss these kinds of things could not be better than in the middle of a president ial campaign and with the impeachment effort doomed to failure in my view and as it turned out correctly, i thought the responsible thing to do was to make sure that these facts in the book were put on the Public Record for people to consider, they would read the book and they may vote for donald trump anyway, that is the decision but my hope is at least they know what theyre voting for. You said you dont have notes and you did not use both for writing this book. It is so detailed and i read it over the course of days. As a lawyer who used the dictation device, did you use a dictation device in the process of writing this book and recounting your time in the white house . Im not sure im hightech enough to turn aggravation on and off. I dont want to get into tapes or anything else. I did the best job that i could, i will stand by what i said in the book, the best job i could do, some people will disagree and i understand and im prepared to talk about the facts and who has different recollection, this happens as a former trial lawyer, people can come away with different recollections. Im very confident that what i wrote in the book was the best i can do to put it down accurately. Lets turn into the topic inside the book, you raised a red flag not just with the president incompetent but possible corruption in the book. You said on page 458 the president has a pension for handing out personal favorites for dictators, do you believe that President Trump with family members such as Jared Kushner have financial conflicts as they craft Foreign Policy for the United States . I do not know the answer to that question, i wrote the book and recounted the very incident, it was not personal financial gain for donald trump that was most on my mind. It was the misuse of legitimate government power to advance its own political interest and that is something that he never forgets what is political interest is, people say he has a short attention span, he does not learn or read or consider facts, i lay out a lot of examples in the book but when it comes to his own reelection, all of those faults fade away. It is too bad more was not devoted to the National Security rather than his own reelection. Thats what i was primarily concerned about if there are samples of financial misdeeds, i cannot say that i saw any, i would not want to speculate but the misuse of government power for any nongovernmental purpose in my view is illegitimate. Every president takes politics into account, it would be naive and foolish to think otherwise but i do think there is a line one should not cross or governmental power is used essentially exclusively for personal benefit. Did the president talk to you about investigation at the Southern District of new york . Yes he did, most importantly he spoke to the president aired one of turkey about the investigation and prosecution in new york and i recount in the book the concerns that i had in mike pompeo had in Steven Mnuchin had about the president and aired one talking about this investigation and litigation in what the president said about what he would do to influence it. The attorney general was part of the firing of the usb way and attorney, you went to the attorney general to voice your concerns about huawei, do you believe the attorney general compromised in any way . I do not know the circumstances involved in the firing of the acting u. S. Attorney in the Southern District of new york, i would not want to speculate. I dont know if the bank is involved at all. From that perspective because i been out of the government since i resigned in september, i do not have anything to add other than what i read in the newspapers. Of the House Democrats pursue an investigation of the attorney general, would you be willing to testify . I would rather not get into hypothetical. There pursuing a subpoena right now. Lets see what they do, the way they mishandled the impeachment inquiry gives me pause i have to say, especially in the light of the circumstances and things that President Trump has done to prevent the book itself from being published. But i will certainly consider it if and when it comes up and consult with my lawyers and try to do the right thing. You are open to it and will try to do the right thing if they pursue an investigation . We will have to see what they do, right now this is hypothetical, were in a Campaign Season and we all know what that means. We talk a little bit about rudy giuliani, do you view the Senate Republicans investigation of Vice President biden, hunter biden and burisma as a legitimate investigation . I dont know anything about biden or his son or what their activities were other than what ive seen in the newspapers. If there are facts that warranted, then i dont have any objection to it. But i dont see anything other than a very foolish act by hunter biden to take the money from burisma in the appearance is not good but whether there is substance, i dont see that from the media accounts that i read. I think it was foolish but i dont see anything beyond that at this point. You right in your book about jamaal, the Washington Post colleague who was killed by a saudi agent. Can you tell us more about the president s views on the murder of jamaal. I recount in the book conversations that he had with saudi leaders and he wanted an investigation to get to the bottom, he also said clearly and made a Public Statement to the same effect that we would stand by the saudis because of the important of the relationship to the United States in a very turbulent and troubled region. Vladimir putin said to me later, the United States does not want to sell arms to saudi arabia, that is fine, we will sell arms to saudi arabia. It is a hard view of the world but thats the view that he took because of the importance of the biorad oral u. S. Saudi relationship and that was the right course. Lets stay on the prudent front for a moment. You write about president putin and President Trump. Do you believe that the russians and putin have manipulated the president s worldview . I dont think the president has a worldview. That is a central problem, he does not approach National Security with a philosophy in mind, he doesnt have a grand strategy, he does not have policies, there is not much there for the russians or anyone else to manipulate. My fear, whether its Vladimir Putin or she can ping or any other foreign leaders that they do see the president as easy to maneuver around to achieve their objective. That is a very real concern. You state also the president sought help from chinese president from the reelection campaign, do you have any evidence that china is helping the president s campaign . I dont think that they are accomplishing the purposes of Agricultural Products that the president was talking about. Some of his trade advisors say the deal is going just fine and chinese are complying. I think the evidence for that is slight to say the least. I think this points to one of the questions that voters generally but particular conservative republicans like myself should be asking whether if trump is reelected in november if you will pursue the rhetoric that his administration is using taken a tough line on china, whether that will continue or disappear so the president can get back to the trade negotiation. Too that point do you believe the president being reelected will work closer with maduro or shes in ping, kim jongun and all the others. Part of the trouble in describing what happens in the Trump Administration foreignpolicy is what seems to be decided on day one is reversed on day two in venezuela example is a good case and point. And i describe how the venezuelan opposition and 2019 decided they had to take an active antimaduro position and they thought it might be the last chance to rescue freedom in venezuela, the supporters of venezuela in this country uniformly agree that they had to take that chance and we had broad bipartisan support for supporting the opposition in venezuela when there is not much in washington that is bipartisan, the strong support for that and the president went along until he decided he was nervous and maduro was a stronger leader, earlier this year juan guaido, the interim president of the state of the Union Message and not just a few days ago, he said he would meet with maduro and he was uncertain about guaidos leadership. That caused a firestorm in the venezuelan communities in the president reversed himself again. After the election what his position will be then . Ambassador we only have a few minutes left, a few more short answers and questions. Your office in d. C. , the white house near the protest about racial injustice. You talk in the book about the president using vulgar terms in sexist terms. Did you ever hear anything inside the white house that was racist . I dont think in terms that can be described as racist, no i do not. There were other statements that were tribute to him before i joined the white house but no, i do not recall any and if i had i wouldve put them in the book. You right about the president and his belief in democracy, do you believe that the president will follow the peaceful transfer of power and leave the white house peacefully if he is defeated this year . I certainly hope so. I think it is important for republicans especially to make that clear. This is something, if we are not careful carrying this around our next any longer than necessary will cause great harm to the country for sure but conservatives and republicans as well, that will come you are describing would be the worst. Lets pause, i hope so about the peaceful transfer of power. So you are not certain . I think in the Trump Administration you cannot be certain of anything. What does that mean for the fate of this country . I think the president ial election this november, they are very unhappy, certainly for me as a lifelong conservative who started handing out for Mary Goldwater as a kid of 15. I wish we were not faced with this choice, i wish there was real conservative republican on the ballot, there is not it will not be a happy time for my perspective, i hope to spend at least a little time working hard to make sure the republican majority in the senate is preserved and whether trump wins or loses, that is absolutely critical. At the president ial level the prospects are not happy. Youre going to be busy working on the Political Action committee, will you campaign against President Trump. I do not know exactly how it will play out, i have not thought all of that through. I think the book of my effort, maybe all of my effort will be at the congressional level, i think under the surface of the republican party, theres a great desire to get beyond the trump era and i think we will see that particularly if hes defeated in november. I think its critical that the party as an institution have a discussion about how we proceed Going Forward because otherwise i fear that the ramifications of trumps for years and office will be very, very damaging. When it comes to National Security i think its critical to have a Strong Republican Party to make the case for a Foreign Policy. Final question, i really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation. Based on your point, are you considering a 2024 president ial run . Absolutely not. I say that unequivocally. People are accusing me of enough things trying to get money out of the book and whatnot. If money were my objective i never wouldve gone into the government. Lets be clear about that. This is not for personal gain, i wrote this for the country and philosophy. And to avoid any misunderstanding on the point, im glad you asked that question so i unequivocally rule out a campaign in 2024. I do remember covering you in 2011 when you are thinking about it and in 2012 and 2015 when you thought about it in 2016 so i had to ask. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much for having me. Wednesday a special edition of book tv with focus on history. Starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern president ial historian and former aid to president george w. Bush looks at the internal fight that shape several president ial administrations. Then 60 minutes correspondent John Dickerson talks about his book on the presidency, the hardest job in the world. Later university of virginia history professor Elizabeth Baron argued that during the civil war the north was motivated to liberate instead of conquer the south. Enjoy book tv on cspan2. The president from Public Affairs available now in paperback and ebook. Present biographies of every president organized by the ranking i noticed historians from best to worst. And features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website cspan. Org thepresident to learn more about each president and historian feature in order your copy today. Wherever books and ebooks are sold. Welcome to the webinar. Thank you for joining us. I am the facilitator and we are pleased to future David Horowitz discussing the important new book titled blitz. Trump will smash the left and win. An immobile turn things over to david after he speaks he will take questions and i will come back on to facilitate that. David is the founder and the