Today i am joined by ambassador john bolton, President Trumps former National Security advisor and he is the author of the room where it happened, white house memoir, ambassador bolton, welcome. Figure having me. Lets begin with the opening of your book, has a detailed recounting of how you join the Trump Administration. Why did you join the administration in the first place about what you wrote in the book about the president s behavior largely known beforehand. I had the honor serving and prior Republican Administration of the state department and the Justice Department. And i felt it was a time of a great challenge for the United States, i thought the prior eight years of the Obama Administration had seen a lot of misguided policies that had weak interNational Security and i hope to commit contribution, i was obviously aware of many of the things that had been said and written about donald trump, but i also had had a number of meetings with him where he had discussed reviews in 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 in a hoped what was in the press and the gossip columns about him were turn out to be overstated and wrong. And that we would find a way to make this work and are sustained and coherent fashion and that i can make a contribution. Thats what my motivation was 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 that you came to the conclusion that President Trump was unfit . It did not pop out like a light bulb turning on, it was the accumulation of many, many meetings, conversations, things that played out over sustained period of time but 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 was badly misguided initiative. Its something he tried to do from the beginning of his term but had not been able to do. I felt that this was something that he clearly had signaled during the campaign that he wanted to do. He was consistent with my wrong standing do of the 2015 deal being contrary to american interest. Despite the increase troubling signs, there were also some positive things that i tried to be as accurate as i can in describing both sides into the equation. It was more in 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. I think the most disturbing moment in the early days would be nato summit in brussels that is described at some length in the book. He really was very close to withdrawing from nato, i didnt think this was show or hoopla, i really did think he was on the verge of doing that. I thought for all the nato needs stand reform for all that trump is correct, that are nato alleys have not over the years born their fair share of the cost. The answer is not to withdraw, the oceans do not protect america like they did two or three centuries ago. In nato in my judgment is a most successful Political Alliance in history. So with mike pompeo and jim mattis who were also there in brussels, 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 and not actually to withdraw. It turns or he did not withdraw. That whole incident which played out over a 48 hour period was very unnerving to me. I think as i indicate probably the first point after i joined the white house that i thought i was going to have to resign. But i do think there is responsibility on people when you go into a position like that and the president makes a decision, and nobody under any illusion for the contrary that you keep trying to provide advice and in that case, i actually thought maybe this is some confirmation that i can make a contribution and despite the narrow myths that actually helped encourage me too stay on longer. You right throughout the book as you just said about your alarm, the president s policy position and statement both publicly and privately. But did you ever speak up and confront the president about the conduct in the behavior that you write about tested legal bounds . We certainly spoke about it, the president is very good at rejecting criticism that he does not want to hear. In some of the areas that i thought were legally questionable, i did briefly counsel the president and the attorney general, that is really their responsibility and i filled them in on what i knew and counted on them what they thought was required. But the service in the white house itself is not like the west wing. There are not dramatic confrontations with the president , at least any that dont result in 24 hours later, departing from the white house. There were things we tried to do in the ukraine for example to ensure that the Security Assistance that was held up was delivered but it is not being kind of environment as of almost any Business Office where you look to confront your bosses something and those of the circumstances that we all worked in, a large Alumni Association of people who had left the Trump Administration, they left at different times for different reasons. It is a very personal decision of how you address the problem such as the president presented, how long you try to address it in what circumstances you finally depart under. Euro no lawyer your entire career, he went to the white House Counsel and the attorney general with some of your concerns, but to your point do you have any regret that you do not have a counsel to the president on National Security on legal matters and tell them to his face that you had severe concerns about his conduct and what he was doing . One of the criticisms that i received and im receiving it today, the book is coming out, i tried to do too many peoples jobs for them and i should have just done my job. So i tried to respect the fact that im not an investigator, and plenty of other things to do, i referred this to the lawyers and i told others on the nsc staff who talk to the lawyers, i told other white house advisors of my concern but i tried to focus on my job, its 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 in the white house in the right direction in terms of policy. Maybe it was a mistake as you reflect back . It could be, im certainly aware i made mistakes and i tried to discuss them in the book, it was hardly perfect, there were things that i couldve done better, im not sure on this score, and it shifted the president s view on all of this in part because he was hearing from so many people from outside who did not understand how the government was actually run and that were influencing him. It is not always clear as events go on and it may simply be unacceptable, unprofessional, and president ial. Knowing of the time that ukraine is a good example, exactly what was happening and ride right of areas that ira others might not be aware of you dont have the full picture. We received many questions from post readers and they often echo Terry Rosenberger massachusetts, he asked about your lack of testimony and given your dire view of the president , why wasnt it 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 that 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 describe them of committing impeachment malpractice prewe had history here, we had nixon and watergate to look back to and you can see even though nixon did not go through the full impeachment process, he resigned of course, what happened was the advocates of impeachment who were all democrats at the beginning built a consensus including an increasing number of republicans that said nixons conduct constituted high crimes and misdemeanors. If you look at the irving committee for example, democrats work with howard baker, republican to develop the evidence and the facts of what actually happened at watergate. That is 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 partisan quarter in highly partisan proceedings in the house and party line 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 actually removing him from office, they didnt just about 180 degrees in the wrong way. And 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 this happened the democratic strategy was divided by them and implemented by them before they talk to anybody else as far as i know. Your decision changed history and i hear your political argument there, your legal argument and historical argument. At the same time, did you grapple with the moral and personal obligation as a citizen to speak up . I grappled with it extensively. And i asked myself what my duty as 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 here was pretty much exactly that. I think there 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 of what happened. He was not just impeached, he was acquitted. So their actions did not form a deterrence against future similar conduct by trump, they enabled it. And i thought that was a mistake and i thought any event, the time to discuss these kinds of things couldnt be better than in the middle of a president ial campaign and with the impeachment effort doomed to failure in my view and i believe 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, people will read the book and they may vote for donald trump anyway. But my hope is, at least they know what theyre voting for. You recently said you do not have notes and you did not use notes for writing the book. It is so detailed, i read the whole thing over a course of a day. As a lawyer we probably often use a 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 use a dictation device on and off production back to the nixon administration. I did the best job i could, i will stand by what i said in the book, the best job i could do, some people will disagree, i understand that, and prepared to talk about the facts and who has different recollection, this happens as a former trial lawyer, i know they can come away with different recollections and im very confident that what i wrote in the book is the best i could do to put it down accurately. With turning to inside the book, you rea raise red flags nt only with the president incompetent but possible corruption in the book. You said on page 458 the president has a pension for handing out personal favors for dictators, do you believe that President Trump or family members such as Jared Kushner have financial conflicts as they craft foreignpolicy for the United States . I dont know the answer to that question but i would say, i wrote the book and recounted these various incidents. 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 interests. That is something that he never forgets what his political interest is. People say he has a short attention span, he doesnt learn, he doesnt read, he doesnt consider facts necessarily and i lay out a lot of examples of that in the book but when it comes to his own reelection, all of those fade away, it is too bad that more wasnt devoted to the National Security rather than his own reelection. But thats what i was primarily concerned about if there was examples of financial misdeeds, i cant say that i saw any so i would not want to speculate about it. But the misuse of government power of 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 think there is a line that one should not cross where governmental power is used essentially exclusively for personal benefit. Did the president ever talk to you about investigation at the Southern District of new york . Yes he did but most importantly he spoke to president aaron one of turkey about the prosecution in new york. I recount in the book the concerns that i had that mike pompeo had that Steven Mnuchin had about the president in air to one talking about the investigation and what the president said you would do to influence it. The attorney general was part of the firing, you went to the attorney general to voice your concerns about other issues like dte in huawei, do you believe the attorney general has compromised in any way . I dont know the circumstances involved in the firing of acting u. S. Attorney in the Southern District of new york, i would not want to speculate. From that perspective, because ive been out of the Government Center resigned in september, i dont have anything to add other than what i read in the newspapers. If the House Democrats pursuant investigation of the attorney general, would you be willing to testify. I would rather not get into a hypothetical about that. 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 of things that President Trump has done to prevent the book itself from being published, i will certainly consider if and when it comes up and consult with my lawyers and try to do the right thing. You are open to and 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, we all know what that means. Weve talked a little bit about rudy giuliani, do you view the Senate Republican 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 again 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 here other than a very foolish act by hunter biden to take the money from burisma, the appearance is not good but whether their substance to it or not, i dont see that from the media accounts that ive read, i think it was foolish but i dont see anything beyond that at this point. You right in your book about the Washington Post colleague who was killed by saudi agents, can you tell us more about the president s views on the murder of him. I recount in the book conversations that he had with saudi leaders, he wanted an investigation to get to the bottom but he also said clearly and made a Public Statement to exactly the same effect that we would stand by the saudis because 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, will sell arms to saudi arabia. It is a hard view of the world but that is the view that he took because of the importance of the bilateral relationship and i think that was the right course. Lets stay on the prudent front for a moment. You write in length 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 to me is the central problem, he does not approach National Security with the philosophy in mind, he does not have a grand strategy, he does not have policies. There is not much there for the russians or anyone else to manipulate but my fear, whether its Vladimir Putin or xi jinping or any other authoritarian foreign leader that they do see the president as easy to maneuver around to achieve their objectives. I think thats a very real concern. You state also that the president sought help from the chinese president for his reelection campaign, do you have any evidence that china is now helping the president s campaign . I dont think theyre accomplishing the purchases of Agricultural Products that the president was really talking about, some of his trade advisors say the deal is going just fine and the chinese are com