The Room Where It Happened by John Bolton
Book Report
by Bobby Everett Smith
Spoiler Alert
Copyright 2020 Bobby Everett Smith for Book Report Only
August 16, 2020
Setting
The White House, Washington, D.C.
This book written by John Bolton, Former National Security Advisor of the United States describes his work with Donald Trump, 45th President.
Characters (Wikipedia.org)
Donald J. Trump 45th and Current President of the United States
John Bolton, National Security Advisor under President Trump. Author of Whitehouse Memoir “The Room Where it Happened”
Rex Tillerson (born March 23, 1952) served as the 69th United States Secretary of State from February 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, under Donald Trump. Prior to joining the Trump administration, Tillerson was chief executive officer of ExxonMobil, holding that position from 2006 until 2017
Michael Flynn (born December 24, 1958) is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who was the 24th National Security Advisor[1] until his forced resignation. Flynn’s military career included. counterterrorism strategy and dismantling insurgent networks in the Middle East wars.
H. R. McMaster (born July 24, 1962) is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who served as the 26th United States National Security Advisor under Donald Trump.
Reinhold “Reince” Priebus[2] (born March 18, 1972) is an American lawyer and politician who served as White House Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump from January 20, 2017, until July 31, 2017. He also served as the chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) from 2011 to 201.
John Kelly (born May 11, 1950) is a retired U.S. Marine Corps general who served as the White House Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump from July 31, 2017, to January 2, 2019. He had previously served as Secretary of Homeland Security in the Trump administration.
“Ivanka” Trump (born October 30, 1981) serves President Trump since 2017 as advisor. The daughter and second child of President Trump and his first wife, Ivana, she is the first Jewish member of a first family, having converted before marrying her husband, Jared Kushner.
Lawrence Kudlow (born August 20, 1947) is the Director of the United States National Economic Council. He assumed that role in 2018 after previous employment as a financial analyst and a television financial news host.
Gina Haspel is an American intelligence officer serving as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since 2018. She is the first woman to hold the post on a permanent basis and was previously the Deputy Director under Mike Pompeo.
“Jack” Keane (born February 1, 1943) is a retired American four-star general, former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army He is a national security analyst, primarily on Fox News.
Steven Mnuchin[2] (born December 21, 1962) is an American investment banker, movie producer, and public official who is serving as the 77th United States secretary of the treasury as part of the Cabinet of Donald Trump.
Michael Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the 48th vice president of the United States, since 2017. He previously was the governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017 and a member of the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013
Bashar Hafez al-Assad (born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who has been the President of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and Regional Secretary of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party’s branch in Syria. His father, Hafez al-Assad, was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000.
Shinzō Abe (born 21 September 1954) is a Japanese politician who has served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2012. He previously served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2006, and as Prime Minister from 2006 to 2007. He is the longest-serving Prime Minister in Japanese history
Nikki Haley (born January 20, 1972) is an American politician, diplomat, businesswoman, and author who served as the Governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017 and as the 29th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, Haley was the first female governor of South Carolina and the first female Indian American governor elected in the United States
Daniel Coats (born May 16, 1943) is an American politician and former diplomat. From 2017 to 2019, he served as the Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration. He served as a United States Senator from Indiana from 1989 to 1999 and again from 2011 to 2017. He was the United States Ambassador to Germany from 2001 to 2005, and a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1989. Coats served on the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence while in the U.S. Senate.
Angela Merkel (born 17 July 1954) is a German politician who has been Chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as the Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018. Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union, the most powerful woman in the world, and by some commentators as the “leader of the free world”.
Kim Jong-un (born 8 January 1982) is a North Korean politician serving as Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011 and the leader of the Workers’ Party of Korea since 2012. He is the second child of Kim Jong-il (1941–2011), who was North Korea’s second Supreme Leader from 1994 to 2011, and Ko Yong-hui (1952–2004.
Barack Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama was the first African American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004
Moon Jae-In (born January 24, 1953) is the current President of South Korea, having taken office in 2017. He previously served as chief of staff to then-president Roh Moo-hyun (2007–2008), leader of the Democratic Party of Korea (2015–2016) and a member of the 19th National Assembly (2012–2016).
Peter Navarro (born July 15, 1949) is an American economist and author. He serves in the Trump administration as the Assistant to the President, Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and the national Defense Production Act policy coordinator.
James Mattis (born September 8, 1950) is a retired United States Marine Corps general who served as the 26th US secretary of defense from January 2017 through January 2019. During his 44 years in the Marine Corps, he commanded forces in the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War.
Mark Milley (born June 18, 1958) is a United States Army general and the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Chairman, he is the highest-ranking and most senior military officer in the United States Armed Forces. He previously served as 39th Chief of Staff of the Army.
Jens Stoltenberg (born 16 March 1959) is a Norwegian politician who has been serving as the 13th secretary general of NATO since 2014 A member of the Labor Party, he was Prime Minister of Norway from 2000 to 2001 and from 2005 to 2013.
Jon Huntsman Jr. (born March 26, 1960) is an American businessman, diplomat and politician who served as the Governor of Utah from 2005 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the Ambassador of the United States to Russia from 2017 to 2019, to China from 2009 to 2011, and to Singapore from 1992 to 1993.
Recep Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current President of Turkey. He previously served as Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. Coming from an Islamist political background and as a self-described conservative democrat, he has promoted socially conservative and populist policies during his administration.
Stephen Miller (born August 23, 1985) is an American government official who serves as a senior advisor for policy to President Donald Trump. His politics have been described as far-right and anti-immigration. He was previously the communications director for then-Senator Jeff Sessions.
John “Mick” Mulvaney (born July 21, 1967) is an American politician who served in President Donald Trump’s cabinet as Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as well as acting White House Chief of Staff until 202. He previously served as the acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from November 2017 to December 2018..
Stephanie Grisham[1] ( born July 23, 1976) is an American White House official who served as the 30th White House press secretary and as White House communications director from July 2019[3] to April 2020. During her time as the White House Press Secretary she did not hold a briefing. She has served as Chief of Staff and Press Secretary for the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump since 2020, and previously as Press Secretary from 2017 to 2019.
Nicolás Maduro (born 23 November 1962), known internationally as Nicolás Maduro, is a Venezuelan politician and president of Venezuela since 2013, with his presidency under dispute since 2019.
James “Rick” Perry (born March 4, 1950) is an American politician who served as the 14th United States Secretary of Energy from 2017 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the Governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015. He left office on December 1, 2019.
Wilbur Ross Jr. (born November 28, 1937) is an American investor and businessman serving, since 2017, as the 39th United States Secretary of Commerce. A member of the Republican Party,
Juan Guaidó (born 28 July 1983) is a Venezuelan politician, a former member of the social-democratic Popular Will party, federal deputy to the National Assembly representing the state of Vargas. On 23 January 2019, Guaidó and the National Assembly declared he was acting President of Venezuela, starting the Venezuelan presidential crisis by challenging Nicolás Maduro’s presidency.
Adil Abdul-Mahdi al-Muntafiki (born 1 January 1942) is an Iraqi politician who served as Prime Minister of Iraq from October 2018 until May 2020. Abdul-Mahdi is an economist and was one of the vice presidents of Iraq from 2005 to 2011. He formerly served as minister of finance in the Interim government and Oil Minister from 2014 to 2016.
Robert Lighthizer (born October 11, 1947) is an American attorney and government official who is the current United States Trade Representative
Michael Cohen (born August 25, 1966) is an American disbarred lawyer who served as an attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump from 2006–2018. Cohen was a vice-president of The Trump Organization, and the personal counsel to Trump, and was often described by media as Trump’s “fixer” He served as co-president of Trump Entertainment and was a board member of the Eric Trump Foundation, a children’s health charity. From 2017 to 2018, Cohen was deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Joseph Dunford Jr. (born December 23, 1955) is a retired United States Marine Corps general, who served as the 19th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2015 until September 30, 2019. He was the 36th Commandant of the Marine Corps. He has commanded several units, including the 5th Marine Regiment during the 2003 invasion of Iraq
Patrick Shanahan (born June 27, 1962) is a former United States federal government official who served as acting U.S. Secretary of Defense in 2019. President Donald Trump appointed Shanahan to the role after the resignation of Retired General James N. Mattis. Shanahan served as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2017 to 2019. He previously spent 30 years at Boeing in a variety of roles.
John Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 68th United States Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017. An attorney, anti-war activist, and former naval officer, Kerry served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts from 1985 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the party’s unsuccessful nominee for President of the United States in the 2004 election.
Mark Esper (born April 26, 1964)[1][2] is the 27th and current United States secretary of defense, and a former U.S. Army officer and defense contractor lobbyist. He previously served as the 23rd United States secretary of the Army from 2017 to 2019.
Mitchell McConnell Jr. (born February 20, 1942) is an American politician serving as Kentucky’s senior United States senator and as Senate Majority Leader. McConnell is the second Kentuckian to serve as a party leader in the Senate, the longest-serving U.S. senator for Kentucky in history, and the longest-serving leader of U.S. Senate Republicans in history.
Michael Eisenberg (October 12, 1942) is an American financier and investor who is the United States Ambassador to Italy. He is known for co-founding and heading private equity firm Granite Capital International Group L.P, serving as the Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey[1] at the time of the September 11, 2001 attack of the World Trade Center, which the Port Authority operated.
Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician serving as Prime Minister of Israel since 2009, and previously from 1996 to 1999. Netanyahu is also the Chairman of the Likud – National Liberal Movement. He is the longest-serving Prime Minister in Israeli history and the first to be born in Israel after the establishment of the state
Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and, from 1998 until his death in 2020, commander of its Quds Force, a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations. In his later years, he was considered the second most powerful person in Iran behind Ayatollah Khamenei and his right-hand man.[
Rudolph Giuliani (born May 28, 1944), is an American attorney and politician. He led the 1980s federal prosecution of New York City mafia bosses and led the city’s civic cleanup as its mayor from 1994 to 2001. In 2017, Donald Trump appointed him cybersecurity advisor. In 2018, he joined Trump’s personal legal team, Giuliani has been a Republican since the 1980s, the US Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983, he was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989.
Randal Paul (born January 7, 1963) is an American politician and physician serving as the junior United States Senator from Kentucky since 2011. He is a son of former U.S. Representative Ron Paul of Texas who was a presidential candidate in 1988, 2008, and 2012.
Thomas Cotton (born May 13, 1977) is an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015, and has served as the junior United States Senator from Arkansas since 2015.
Edward Cruz (born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator for Texas since 2013. He was the runner-up for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 election
Charles Martin Kupperman[1] (born November 9, 1950) was the United States Deputy National Security Advisor for President Donald Trump, a position he held from January to September 2019. He also was the acting United States National Security Advisor for eight days in September 2019 between John Bolton and Robert C. O’Brien.
Viktor Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) is a Ukrainian politician who was elected as the fourth President of Ukraine in 2010. He was removed from the office in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. He currently lives in exile in Russia.[
Jair Messias Bolsonaro (born 21 March 1955) is a Brazilian politician and retired military officer who is the 38th president of Brazil. Elected in 2018 as a member of the conservative Social Liberal Party before cutting ties with them, he has been in office since 1 January 2019. He previously served in the country’s Chamber of Deputies, representing the state of Rio de Janeiro between 1991 and 2018.
Volodymyr Zelensky[a] (born 25 January 1978) is the 6th and current president of Ukraine. Before entering politics, he was a comedian, actor, screenwriter, film producer, and director.
George Soros, (born August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American billionaire investor and philanthropist. As of May 2020, he had a net worth of $8.3 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations.
Gordon Sondland (born July 16, 1957) is an American diplomat and businessperson. He served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 2018[3] to 2020. Sondland is also the founder and former chairman of Provenance Hotels. In November 2019, Sondland testified as a witness at the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. He was fired by Trump on February 7, 2020, two days after the conclusion of Trump’s impeachment trial.
Anita Faye Hill (born July 30, 1956) is an American lawyer and academic. She is a university professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of the university’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She became a national figure in 1991 when she accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, her supervisor at the United States Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, of sexual harassment
William Taylor Jr. (born September 14, 1947) is an American diplomat, government official, and former soldier, who served as the 6th United States ambassador to Ukraine 2006 to 2009 and as acting ambassador to Ukraine from June 2019 to January 2020.
Kamala Devi Harris (born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and lawyer who has served as the junior United States senator from California since 2017. She is the presumptive Democratic vice-presidential nominee in the 2020 election
Executive Summary
John Bolton, author of The Room Where it Happened, A White House Memoir, served as National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump from April 9, 2018 to September 10, 2019. Bolton started the position as a friend and ally of Trump and ended with Trump filing suit to prevent publication of this book.
According to Wikipedia, Bolton is a foreign policy hawk and is an advocate for regime change in Iran, Syria, North Korea, and other entities. He served as the 25th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and was a foreign policy adviser to 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He is a graduate of and has a law degree from Yale.
Bolton shows a president addicted to chaos who embraces our enemies like Russia and spurns our friends like NATO. Trump is deeply suspicious of his own government and approaches foreign policy like he was closing a real estate deal.
Bolton described his relationship with Donald Trump stating that Trump performed in a style that encouraged only yes men as his closest advisors. Trump believes that he can run the Executive Branch on instinct.
Soon after he started as NSA, Bolton realized that the key problem in the Trump cabinet was Jim Mattis, Secretary of Defense.
On Iran, Trump was worried about Russian casualties or damage to Russian assets in a retaliatory attack against Iran coming from the U.S. Bolton assured the president that any missiles launched would not target Russian forces.
Bolton informed Trump that they were being sandbagged by Mattis on the range of target options, but that the strategy he had developed was the correct one for the retaliation against the Syrian regime.
Kelly and Bolton met, and Kelly said that the White House was a terrible place to work and he could hardly wait to get out of it. “I am desperate to get out of it. You will soon find out.”
On the North Korea denuclearization, Trump expected the North Koreans to be willing to give up their nuclear program entirely. North Korea had no such plans.
Trump opposed endless wars in the Middle East, but he had no coherent strategy for dealing with the withdrawal of U.S. Forces plus what to do in the region after our forces came home.
Immigration issues, according to Bolton, stumbled along rather than following any coherent or organized plan.
Kelly’s resignation as Chief of Staff: “With Kelly’s departure and Mulvaney’s arrival, all effective efforts at managing the Executive Office of the President, disappeared. Personnel decisions deteriorated further, and general chaos spread.
Xi, the President of China, visited Trump in the White House. Xi told Trump how wonderful he was, and Trump ate it up.
The National Security Advisor had two objectives in Afghanistan. 1) prevent the potential resurgence of ISIS and al Qaeda and the potential threats of terrorist attacks against America.
2) Remaining vigilant against the nuclear weapons program in Iran on the West and Pakistan on the East. The hard part was getting Trump to agree and then stick to the decision.
Trump wanted to get out of Afghanistan completely. White House staff members wanted to keep enough forces there to prevent ISIS, Taliban, and Al Qaeda terrorists from attacking the U.S.
Trump sent Rudi Giuliani to Ukraine with the request that the Government investigate criminal activity by Joe Biden and his son Hunter which Trump wanted to use for political purposes in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. Trump threatened to withhold $400 million in military aid if the Zelensky government did not follow his request.
On February 28, 2019 Trump and Kim Jong-Un held a 1-1 conference in Vietnam. Trump, busy watching testimony by Michael Cohen, cancelled the prepatory briefings for the meeting. Trump was prepared for an “I Walk” outcome to the meetings because he doubted that North Korea would agree to denuclearization, a requirement.
After an hour or so of negotiations, Trump acknowledged that they had reached an impasse that was politically impossible for him to accept in the current meeting. Trump walked away from the meeting effectively showing the rest of the world that he would do it in Vietnam or anywhere else for that matter. Trump did not think of “walking away” as a failure.
On September 10, 2019, Bolton resigned his position as National Security Advisor. President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives and Bolton was in the process of getting this book published.
The House wanted Bolton to testify as to his knowledge about the impeachment allegations. Trump wanted Bolton not to publish the book and he filed suit in Federal Court to prevent the book’s release.
Bolton believed that the advocates of impeachment in the House were committing impeachment malpractice. At the end of the day, Bolton did not testify before the House; the book was published, and we are reading it now. The Senate did not even listen to testimony that would possibly have convicted Trump who was acquitted. At the middle of August 2020, we are in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic and the Democratic Convention to nominate the next President of the United States is scheduled to start as the first-ever on-line party convention. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the de-facto Democratic nominees and Donald Trump is the de-facto Republican. Pence as Republican VP is yet to be confirmed.
Summary of The Room Where It Happened
The National Security Advisor is a cabinet-level advisor to the President of the United States who maintains his office in the West Wing of the White House. This position does not require Senate approval unless it is a general of the military appointed to the position. The NSC advisor serves the President on national security issues. This assistant to the President works closely with the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Treasury.
John Bolton, author of The Room Where it Happened, A White House Memoir, served as National Security Advisor from April 9, 2018 to September 10, 2019 under Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States.
Early Challenges
Bolton is a foreign policy hawk and is an advocate for regime change in Iran, Syria, North Korea, and other entities. He served as the 25th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and was a foreign policy adviser to 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He is a graduate of and has a law degree from Yale.
Bolton claims that this book is the most comprehensive account of the Trump administration and one of the few books to date (August 2020) by a high-level official. Donald Trump has made substantial efforts to censor the book or even prevent its publication, but Bolton succeeded in getting it published in Summer of 2020.
Bolton shows a president addicted to chaos who embraces our enemies like Russia and spurns our friends like NATO, and who is deeply suspicious of his own government. Trump approaches foreign policy like he was closing a real estate deal.
During his time as National Security Advisor, Bolton dealt with chemical attacks in Syria, near-war experiences with Iran, nuclear weapons ability of North Korea, and U S strategy in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran.
Bolton described his relationship with Donald Trump stating that Trump performed in a style that encouraged only yes men as his closest advisors. Trump believes that he can run the Executive Branch on instinct.
Constant Personnel Turnover
Trump’s administration was marked by constant personnel turnover and punctuated by “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” personnel activities that described life at the White House.
Trump did not understand how the government works before he took office. He did not learn much during his transition to the presidency or in his first two years of office. The key character trait required by Trump to get a job at the White House was “Loyalty.”
One example of Trump’s demand for loyalty came with the firing of FBI Directory, James Comey. Trump criticized Comey for mishandling of classified matter, calling him a nutjob but the real issue was Comey’s unwillingness to express his devoted loyalty to the President.
Charles Krauthammer was quoted as saying that Trump was like a one year old in his daily behavior. “Everything is seen through a prism of whether or not it benefits Donald Trump.
On April 9, 2018, Trump announced by Tweet that he had appointed John Bolton as National Security Advisor replacing General H.R. McMaster. An official handover was scheduled for April 9 and Trump tweeted that McMaster, the second National Security Advisor already in his administration, had done an excellent job and would always remain his friend.
One of his first challenges, Bolton tackled Trump’s desire to get out of Syria. This issue overlapped with the U.S. desire to overturn ISIS which was making good progress at the time.
The White House Chief of Staff John Kelly explained to Bolton how Trump acted on phone calls and in meetings. Trump changed his mind constantly. “I’m glad you’re here,” Kelly.
Bolton spent his first weekend on the job studying classified materials about the Syria withdrawal. The Syria crisis came, “unannounced and unexpected like much of the next 17 months.
Syrian forces attacked the City of Douma with chemical weapons killing a dozen people and injuring hundreds. On the 10th of April 2018, the United States responded forcefully with an attack of 59 cruise missiles on the site from which the chemical attack had been launched. Syria policy in the U.S. was in disarray lacking agreement on objectives and strategy amongst the Executive leaders.
Bolton soon realized that the key problem in the Trump cabinet was Jim Mattis, Secretary of Defense. Mattis had not produced any target information to NSC and white House legal staff to evaluate the strategy and the legality of retaliatory attacks. Mattis was intentionally delaying this information to avoid exercising the attacks, an event which he opposed or wanted to minimize.
Trump was worried about Russian casualties or damage to Russian assets in any attack coming from the U.S. Bolton assured the president that any missiles launched would not target Russian forces.
Bolton informed Trump that they were being sandbagged by Mattis on the range of target options, but that the strategy he had developed was the correct one for the retaliation against the Syrian regime.
After considerable rancor amongst the various members of Trump’s staff, the go order for 2100 was issued. Trump delivered a speech to the American people on TV. The strike went perfectly but the question remained, “had Assad been deterred?” Not in the long run, according to Bolton.
After the Syrian attack, Bolton helped Trump prepare for meeting with the Japanese prime minister, Abe, in Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort in Florida. Th preparations were arduous getting ready for discussions with Japan on North Korea, and trade and economic issues.
Meetings with German and French leaders, Merkel and Macron, followed during the following two weeks. Trump was pushing for changes in trade tariffs. Trump wanted NATO members to pay a larger percentage of their GDP to make it closer to their fair share of the NATO budget. Cabinet members were working to withdraw from the Obama nuclear treaty with Iran. Mattis continued to make his case against withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Treaty.
North Korean Nuclear Weapons Negotiations
Trump resumed his focus on the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Trump believed that he could negotiate Kim Jong-Un out of his nuclear weapons, but Bolton was skeptical. Trump wanted to meet face-to-face with the North Korean leader. Bolton objected.
Trump and Kim Jong-Un agreed to meet in Singapore. The senior leaders of Trumps staff: Pompeo, Kelly, and Bolton did not trust to have Trump and Kim Jong-Un together privately and they agreed amongst themselves to be with two leaders during the Singapore meetings.
During this period, Kelly and Bolton met and Kelly told Bolton that the White House was a terrible place to work and he could hardly wait to get out of it. “I am desperate to get out of it. You will soon find out.”
On the North Korea denuclearization, Trump expected the North Koreans to be willing to give up their nuclear program entirely. North Korea had no such plans. The first Singapore meeting was cancelled and rescheduled for June 12.
Another meeting with Kim Jong-Un was held in mid October. Kim complained about sanctions, but the main outcome of the meeting was to restart working-level discussions. Bolton considered the meetings inevitable but bad news.
Summit Meetings with European Leaders
After the Singapore meetings with North Korea, three more summits were held in July—Brussels with NATO, London with Thresa May and Helsinki with Putin. Trump was not following any international grand strategy. It was more like he was negotiating a group of real estate deals, leaving his staff members in search of information as to objectives and plans.
Putin took a hardline in his discussions about Ukraine. He said military sales to the Ukraine were illegal and he refused to discuss Crimea.
Trump’s main concern on NATO was that other members pay their fair share of the expenses they had committed, 2% of their GDP. Trump believed at the end of the meeting that he had obtained agreement from NATO leaders to pay their share. Trump tweeted, great success at NATO, billions of additional dollars paid by members since my election.
Trump blamed Obama for the loss of Crimea to the Russians. As to Russian meddling in the U.S. elections, Putin denied that he done anything wrong and committed to no more cyber-attacks. Putin also said that he wanted Trump to win the 2016 election. Bolton claimed that Putin had to have laughed uproariously at what he had gotten away with in Helsinki. Conti Rice stated that Putin only had two ways to deal with people, humiliate them or dominate them. Many people in Washington were calling on high level advisors including Bolton and John Kelly to resign,
Russia had been violating the INF (Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty for years. Bolton pushed for the U.S. to extricate itself from the treaty which had been originally signed under Reagan in 1987. The U.S. had followed the treaty. Russia was cheating and the U.S. was losing the strategic advantage because of the treaty. Russia presented a list about U.S. cheating on the treaty.
Trump agreed to announce withdrawal from the INF Treaty on December 4, 2018. The US formally withdrew from the treaty on 2 August 2019.
Trump’s inconsistent views and decisions on Russia made work by the White House Staff even more complicated. Bolton and other members of the White House Staff had done substantial amounts of work to protect the U.S. against election interference from Russia and other foreign nations.
U.S. Withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan
Trump opposed endless wars in the Middle East, but he had no coherent strategy for dealing with the withdrawal of U.S. Forces. Nor did he know what to do after our forces came home.
Trump said he was ready to leave Syria if Turkey agreed to handle the the defeat of ISIS. Bolton felt that withdrawal from Syria was a huge mistake. Trump was determined to get out, one of his campaign promises. The main issue was the relationship with our allies, the Kurds in the Northwest portion of Syria. Mattis resigned from his position as Secretary of Defense.
Trump opposed a continuing U.S. presence in Afghanistan. “We’ve lost everything, it’s a total failure, a waste, I hate talking about it. I don’t like losing wars.” Trump said. “Even if we did win, we get nothing.”
Chaos as a Way of Life
Trump generally had only two intelligence briefings per week while other presidents had one or up to three per day.
Immigration over the Mexican border was a key issue for the Trump administration and matters got worse when the President implemented a zero tolerance program that resulted in children being separated from their parents as they tried to get asylum in the United States. Under political pressure, Trump reversed this policy and Kelly went home objecting to the fact that Trump had hung Sessions and Nielsen “out to dry.”
Bolton’s view on the issue was that the country would benefit more from a legal, far more controlled immigration policy. “Illegal immigration was undermining the foundational sovereignty of the United States. Trump pounded on the table; “we’re doing the worst job on the border of any administration. I ran and won on the border. We have a national emergency. Trump changed management of the border issues between Nielsen and Pompeo on several occasions. Pompeo asked Bolton, “why are we still here?”
Trump still wanted the money from Congress to build the wall. Trump appointed Kushner as the leader of the border issue. “Nielsen is not able to do it,” Trump said.
Bolton drafted a one-page plan that included giving international negotiation authority to the State Department and rewriting all the Homeland Security and Justice Department regulations. Trump reviewed the plan and said he agreed with most of it but he could not implement it until after the election.
John Kelly announced he was resigning as Chief of Staff On December 14, 2018. The White House announced that Mick Mulvaney would replace John Kelly as the White House Chief of Staff.
“With Kelly’s departure and Mulvaney’s arrival, all effective efforts at managing the Executive Office of the President, disappeared. Personnel decisions deteriorated further and general chaos spread.
Venezuela Insurrection
In February 2018, the current president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, called for presidential elections four months before the prescribed date. He was declared the winner in May 2018 after multiple major opposition parties were banned from participating. Many said the elections were invalid.
In the months leading up to his 10 January 2019 inauguration, Maduro was pressured to step down by nations and bodies including the United States, and the OAS. Between the May 2018 presidential election and Maduro’s inauguration, there were calls to establish a transitional government.
In December 2018, Guaidó traveled to Washington D.C. and met with OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, and to Colombia for a Lima Group meeting in which Maduro’s mandate was rejected.
On 23 January 2019, Juan Guaidó and the National Assembly declared he was acting President of Venezuela starting the Venezuelan presidential crisis by challenging Maduro’s presidency.
The Trump administration decided to back Guaidó and said that the decision was the result of two years of planning.
On March 11, 2019 Trump ordered Pompeo to close the American Embassy in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan rebellion ended in April 2019, but it had come close to success. In the future Venezuela will be free.
Trade with China
Trade discussions with China had been underway for some time after Bolton took. Trump viewed trade balances like they were a corporate balance sheet. Trade deficits were a loser and trade surpluses were a winner. ZTE, a large Chinese telecom company, was accused of massive violations of US Sanctions against Iran and North Korea.
Xi, the President of China, visited Trump in the White House. Xi told Trump how wonderful he was, and Trump ate it up. Trump ad-libbed responses with none of his staff being able to predict what would come next. Xi told Trump he wanted to work with him for six more years, and Trump replied that our term limits for President should be repealed. Xi said the U.S. had too many elections. Trump agreed.
To help with the farm-state vote, Trump offered to reduce tariffs if Xi would buy more farm products. Intellectual property regulations were mentioned but left for future discussions as to the thefts that China was accused of perpetrating. Trump asked Xi to reduce shipments of fentanyl to the United States. Xi agreed to do that but when the time came to execute that promise, nothing happened.
Trump regaled listeners on triumphs he had scored when the meetings were over.
Lighthizer and Kushner were named leaders of negotiations with China. Mnuchin’s role was reduced. Fed Chairman Powell was criticized for keeping interest rates too high. Dissatisfaction between the people in Hong Kong and the Chinese government continued to grow. Trump did not want to take a stand on the Hong Kong situation. “Who cares about it? I am trying to make a deal,” Trump said.
China was also repressing ethnic minorities in Tibet. Xi wanted Trump to support his conquest of Taiwan. To Xi, the situation with Taiwan involved national integrity. He asked for Trump’s personal attention to the Taiwan issue.
The Coronavirus pandemic started in China in January 2020. Trump claimed that China delayed, withheld, fabricated, and distorted information about the virus. Trump maintained that the virus was contained in January 2020. Market reactions to Trump’s approach to the COVID 19 disease were decidedly negative which may have woken up to the problem in this election year. The NSC recommended closing cities the size of Chicago to control the pandemic. Trump avoided any such actions until March.
New Dealings with North Korea
On February 28, 2019 Trump and Kim Jong-Un held a 1-1 conference in Vietnam. Trump was prepared for an “I Walk” outcome to the meetings because he doubted that North Korea would agree to denuclearization, a requirement.
After an hour of negotiations, Trump acknowledged that they had reached an impasse that was politically impossible for him to accept in the current meeting. Trump walked away from the meeting effectively showing the rest of the world that he would do it in Vietnam or anywhere else. Trump did not think of “walking away” as a failure.
By March 15, North Korea believed that Bolton and Pompeo had created an atmosphere of mistrust which prevented further progress in the US/NK relationship. Trump and Kim Jong-Un still seemed to be on good terms. Overall North Korea had gone from being surprised to being outraged at the outcome of the Hanoi meeting.
Trump was feeling that he had been too harsh on Kim Jong-Un in Hanoi. He lifted some of the sanctions. Trump sent a private tweet to the North Korean leader reversing the recent Treasury Department Sanctions. Trump said, “I like Kim Jong-Un and the sanctions were unnecessary.” The tweet went out on March 16.
Bolton and Mnuchin gave Trump a briefing saying that reversing the sanctions was a bad idea. Trump accepted the Treasury recommendations but not those of his National Security Advisor.
In South Korea, Trump threatened to withdraw all of our troops from S. Korea if they did not increase the amount they paid to support U.S. troops in their country. Trump wanted an increase from $1 Billion to $ 5 Billion, an enormous increase. Both State Department and Defense Department thought that was too much.
Bolton feared that Trump might implement his threat to withdraw all U.S. troops from S. Korea. Bolton wanted to develop a strategy that Trump could accept without disrupting our military position in S. Korea.
In May 2019, Trump traveled to Asia where he met in Japan with Abe, the Prime Minister, Moon, the Prime Minister of S. Korea, and Xi, the President of China in separate meetings. While in Japan, he enjoyed the best relationship with Prime Minister Abe of any that he had with any world leader. He also tweeted a message to Kim Jong-Un and asked him if he wanted to meet at the DMZ. This tweet was a surprise to his NSA and other cabinet members. The tweet mentioned that the meeting was just for a handshake and a hello.
North Korea asked for a formal invitation and Pompeo succumbed to the request.
Moon of S. Korea wanted to attend the DMZ meeting. Trump and Kim Jong-Un met and shook hands. Nothing substantial took place but Trump was pleased with just having the meeting. In critique of the DMZ meeting, Trump claimed that no one else could have pulled off such a meeting even though nothing of substance had transpired.
Trump believed that Chairman Kim Jong-Un wanted to please him and that their future negotiations would hinge on that personal relationship. Only Trump could help Chairman Kim achieve the long-range objectives he had for North Korea. Chairman Kim does not want to disappoint his friend, the Trump.
Afghanistan
The National Security Advisor had two objectives in Afghanistan. 1) prevent the potential resurgence of ISIS and al Qaeda and future terrorist attacks against America. 2) remaining vigilant against the nuclear weapons program in Iran on the West and Pakistan on the East. The hard part was getting Trump to agree and then sticking to the decision.
Trump wanted to get out of Afghanistan completely. White House staff members wanted to keep enough forces there to prevent ISIS, Taliban, and Al Qaeda terrorists from attacking the U.S.
A meeting was planned for March 15 to present to Trump the necessity for maintaining a counterterrorism force in Afghanistan.
In the meeting, held in the Pentagon, Trump asked why we were still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not in Venezuela which was clearly what he preferred to do. “Why are we still in Africa?” Trump asked. At the end of the meeting, staff members agreed that Trump believed that they were listening to him, a definite win in pursuing the objectives of the meeting.
The Bedminster meeting with Trump and a cast of thousands started about 3 p.m. with Pompeo stating that we are not quite done with the Taliban. The negotiations with the Taliban were approaching conclusion but the Taliban, according to Trump, was getting the better of the deal. As the meeting progressed, Trump stated, “I want to get out of everything.” I want out of Africa, Germany, S. Korea, and Afghanistan.”
The meeting ended at 4:50 without a decision.
In the end, Trump agreed to keep a presence of 8600 in Afghanistan.
Ukraine
Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Ukraine is currently in a territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Trump attempted to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, his son, by withholding foreign aid, Trump sent Rudi Giuliani to Ukraine with the request that the Government investigate criminal activity by Joe Biden and his son Hunter which Trump wanted to use for political purposes in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. Trump threatened to withhold $400 million in military aid if the Zelensky government did not follow his request.
In September 2019, the President was impeached by the House of Representatives and acquitted by the Senate. Trump released the military aid to Ukraine around September 30.
Conclusion
On September 10, 2019, Bolton resigned his position as National Security Advisor. President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives and Bolton was in the process of getting this book, The Room Where it Happened published.
The House wanted Bolton to testify as to his knowledge about the impeachment allegations. Trump wanted Bolton not to publish the book and he filed suite in federal Court to prevent the book’s release.
Bolton believed that the advocates of impeachment in the House were committing impeachment malpractice. At the end of the day, Bolton did not testify before the House; the book was published, and we are reading it now. The Senate did not even listen to testimony that would possibly have convicted Trump. Trump was acquitted and at the middle of August, we are in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic and the Democratic Convention to nominate the next President of the United States is schedule to start as the first-ever on-line party convention. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the de-facto Democratic nominees and Donald Trump is the de-facto Republican. Pence as Republican VP is yet to be confirmed.
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