John Bolton > Quotes

“Trump is Trump. I came to understand that he believed he could run the Executive Branch and establish national-security policies on instinct, relying on personal relationships with foreign leaders, and with made-for-television showmanship always top of mind. Now, instinct, personal relations, and showmanship are elements of any President’s repertoire. But they are not all of it, by a long stretch. Analysis, planning, intellectual discipline and rigor, evaluation of results, course corrections, and the like are the blocking and tackling of presidential decision-making, the unglamorous side of the job. Appearance takes you only so far.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“When the situation was manageable, it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the Sibylline books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience, and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Trump generally had only two intelligence briefings per week, and in most of those, he spoke at greater length than the briefers, often on matters completely unrelated to the subjects at hand.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Kim asked how Trump assessed him, and Trump answered that he loved that question. He saw Kim as really smart, quite secretive, a very good person, totally sincere, with a great personality. Kim said that in politics, people are like actors. Trump was correct on one point. Kim Jong Un knew just what he was doing when he asked what Trump thought of him; it was a question designed to elicit a positive response, or risk ending the meeting right there. By asking a seemingly naïve or edgy question, Kim actually threw the burden and risk of answering on the other person. It showed he had Trump hooked.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Trump is Trump. I came to understand that he believed he could run the Executive Branch and establish national-security policies on instinct, relying on personal”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“I felt sick that a stray tweet could actually result in a meeting, although I took some solace from believing that what motivated Trump was the press coverage and photo op of this unprecedented DMZ get-together, not anything substantive. Trump had wanted to have one of the earlier summits at the DMZ, but that idea had been short-circuited because it gave Kim Jong Un the home-court advantage (whereas we would fly halfway around the world), and because we still hadn’t figured out how to ensure it was just a Trump-Kim bilateral meeting. Now it was going to happen. North Korea had what it wanted from the United States and Trump had what he wanted personally. This showed the asymmetry of Trump’s view of foreign affairs. He couldn’t tell the difference between his personal interests and the country’s interests.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming US presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words, but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“It is difficult beyond description to pursue a complex policy in a contentious part of the world when the policy is subject to instant modification based on the boss’s perception of how inaccurate and often-already-outdated information is reported by writers who don’t have the Administration’s best interests at heart in the first place. It was like making and executing policy inside a pinball machine, not the West Wing of the White House.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“The right way to impose sanctions is to do so swiftly and unexpectedly; make them broad and comprehensive, not piecemeal; and enforce them rigorously, using military assets to interdict illicit commerce if necessary.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“want real loyalty. I want him to kiss my ass in Macy’s window at high noon and tell me it smells like roses.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“post hoc, ergo propter hoc” (“after this, therefore because of this”),”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Even twenty months into the Trump presidency, new appointees and new policies were not yet in place. If it were still early 2017, the problem might have been understandable, but it was sheer malpractice that bureaucratic inertia persisted in such critical policy areas.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Trump shifted again to complaining about leaks, including that CNN had earlier reported this very meeting. “These people should be executed, they are scumbags,” he”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Here, it was all about Trump and Xi. In countless other episodes, he had trouble divorcing the personal from the official.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“They promised real influence, access to Trump, and the inevitability of Administration turnover, meaning I would eventually become Secretary of State or something. Based on my government experience, I explained that to run the bureaucracy, you needed to control the bureaucracy, not just watch it from the White House.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Finnish saying, “The Cossacks take everything that’s loose.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Across the Islamic world, the radical philosophies that had caused so much death and destruction were ideological, political as well as religious.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“North Korea’s approach was different. Kim sent Trump one of his famous “love letters” at the beginning of August, criticizing the lack of progress since Singapore and suggesting the two of them get together again soon.29 Pompeo and I agreed such a meeting needed to be avoided at any cost, and certainly not before the November election. Under such political pressure, who knew what Trump might give away?”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“At most, the internal NSC structure was no more than the quiver of a butterfly’s wings in the tsunami of Trump’s chaos.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Trump said Putin spent a lot of time talking, and he listened, which was a switch.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“If he said it enough times, perhaps it would become true.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“panda huggers like Mnuchin;”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“another fantasy).”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“As the New York Times reported in a historical review in mid-April: The National Security Council office responsible for tracking pandemics received intelligence reports in early January predicting the spread of the virus to the United States, and within weeks was raising options like keeping Americans home from work and shutting down cities the size of Chicago. Mr. Trump would avoid such steps until March.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“checking his eyelids for pinholes.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Isn’t Finland kind of a satellite of Russia?” he asked. (Later that same morning, Trump asked Kelly if Finland was part of Russia.) I tried to explain the history but didn’t get very far before Trump said he too wanted Vienna. “Whatever they [the Russians] want. Tell them we’ll do whatever they want.” After considerable further jockeying, however, we agreed on Helsinki.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“After I left the White House, when Trump abandoned the Kurds in Syria, there was speculation about who he might abandon next.27 Taiwan was right near the top of the list, and would probably stay there as long as Trump remained President, not a happy prospect.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“His personal take on the Russian leader remained a mystery.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“Trump was worried about the possibility of Russian casualties in Syria, given Russia’s extensive military presence there, which had climbed dramatically during the Obama years. This was a legitimate concern, and one we addressed by having the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joe Dunford, call his Russian counterpart, Valery Gerasimov, to assure him that whatever action we decided to take, it would not be targeted at Russian personnel or assets.16 The Dunford-Gerasimov channel had been and remained a critical asset for both countries over time, in many instances far more suitable than conventional diplomatic communications to ensure Washington and Moscow both clearly understood their respective interests and intentions.”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

“country”
― John R. Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir