the president s entitled to do what he wants to do. that s what the constitution says. the executive power resides in the president. so, john what is bolton likely to say? even if he believes the president is constitutionally authorized to do what he wants he was raising red flags about the pressure placed on ukraine? absolutely. i think some of what we re seeing reported in some of what we re hearing from the testimony of some of the people that worked for john bolton suggested bolton was concerned and started to sort of establish a paper trail with the lawyers both at the white house and at the state department. i think that quote gets to the point of why we should expect john bolton to only testify sort of rather unwillingly, and then when he does, relatively i think not expansive. so we see so far in the quotes that he has blamed ambassador to the eu sondland. blamed mick mulvaney chief of staff and talking about the drug deal quote? exactly. all of these quotes are abo
he left the white house after months of reported tension with president trump but if he returns to testify in his impeachment inquiry do not expect john bolton to spill the beans on his former boss. the defining of my next guest who recently wrote a pete for politico totaled don t bet on john bolton to be an impeachment hero author also of white house warriors. so, john gantz, good to have you on. thank you for coming on. thanks for having me on. let me read what you wrote. the power of the modern presidency is bolton s career legacy. when trump and his defenders question the legitimacy of today s inquiry they re not just speaking bolton s language they re using his talking points. tell me what you mean. well, john bolton sort of came up in washington at a time
so i think that s because right there is the tension between john bolton s long held principle that the president has the authority to do whatand his looked like a potentially illegal operation. that was being run out of the white house. so that is the tension you see. my hunch is when he will do what he needs to do and say what he has to say but won t go beyond that or undermine the presidency itself. this is the quote in case people don t remember. not only did he call rudy giuliani a hand grenade he called out sondland and mulvaney saying he was not part of whatever drug deal and sondland and mulvaney are cooking up. to your point, he doesn t name check the president, do you think that is foreshadowing if and when he testifies or is subpoenaed, doesn t excite executive privilege, that is more or less what he ll say? that it wasn t the president?
so far that is what we have to go on. but you have to go on what he s done over the entire career which is to stand up and say the president deserves to do what he thinks is right and so what this is running into is sort of the long-held tensions that he s had and i think his career and his time in the trump white house where he had his long-held positions on iran and north korea were in tension at times with donald trump. john bolton has a long time to go along and get along. he a hard time doing that in the trump white house and in the resistance in washington in the impeachment inquiry. so it will be narrow and lawyerly and stay within his own parameters of the letter of the law. i have a feeling you and i will do this dance again if and when the former national security secretary is up on capitol hill. thank you john gantz. coming up, the most diverse democratic field in history. but the top four presidential candidates, according to polls, are still white.
where the presidency was really at its lowest point. right? arrived in washington after watergate. a nixon white house intern and he actually thought congress really overreacted to watergate and spent much of his career sort of much of the 1980s defending the president and the white house from investigations into foreign policy. he fought against iran/contra. actually fought against congress invest sgigs a drug deal. as the impeachment fight shapes into a battle between congress and the white house over the ability to hold the president accountable for foreign policy it s hard to imagine john bolton coming out and sort of counteracting everything he s done over his entire career to sort of get revenge or perhaps undermine president trump. we know that bolton s attorneys are in negotiations for a deposition in this impeachment inquiry and you think he should testify but also say trump critics shouldn t get hopes up about what he ll say. i want to play something that he told fox news