num_pages: 588
description: As President Trumps National Security Advisor John Bolton spent many of his 453 days in the room where it happened and the facts speak for themselves.The result is a White House memoir that is the most comprehensive and substantial account of the Trump Administration and one of the few to date by a top-level official. With almost daily access to the President John Bolton has produced a precise rendering of his days in and around the Oval Office. What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting re-elected was the only thing that mattered even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation. I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasnt driven by re-election calculations he writes. In fact he argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trumps Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy - and Bolton documents exactly what those were and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them.He shows a President addicted to chaos who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends and was deeply suspicious of his own government. In Boltons telling all this helped put Trump on the bizarre road to impeachment. The differences between this presidency and previous ones I had served were stunning writes Bolton who worked for Reagan Bush 41 and Bush 43. He discovered a President who thought foreign policy is like closing a real estate deal - about personal relationships made-for-TV showmanship and advancing his own interests. As a result the US lost an opportunity to confront its deepening threats and in cases like China Russia Iran and North Korea ended up in a more vulnerable place.Boltons account starts with his long march to the West Wing as Trump and others woo him for the National Security job. The minute he lands he has to deal with Syrias chemical attack on the city of Douma and the crises after that never stop. As he writes in the opening pages If you dont like turmoil uncertainty and risk - all the while being constantly overwhelmed with information decisions to be made and sheer amount of work - and enlivened by international and domestic personality and ego conflicts beyond description try something else.The turmoil conflicts and egos are all there - from the upheaval in Venezuela to the erratic and manipulative moves of North Koreas Kim Jong Un to the showdowns at the G7 summits the calculated warmongering by Iran the crazy plan to bring the Taliban to Camp David and the placating of an authoritarian China that ultimately exposed the world to its lethal lies. But this seasoned public servant also has a great eye for the Washington inside game and his story is full of wit and wry humor about how he saw it played.
language: English
title: The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir
publisher: Simon & Schuster