The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir
- ISBN-10
- 1982148055
- ISBN-13
- 9781982148058
- Category
- Political Science
- Pages
- 592
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-06-23
- Publisher
- Simon and Schuster
- Author
- John Bolton
Description
As President Trump’s 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 reelected 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 wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” he writes. In fact, he argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s 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 Bolton’s 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. Bolton’s 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 Syria’s chemical attack on the city of Douma, and the crises after that never stop. As he writes in the opening pages, “If you don’t 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 Korea’s 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.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir
By John BoltonAs President Trump's National Security Advisor, John Bolton spent many of his 453 days in the room where it happened, and the facts speak for themselves.
-
The Room Where It Happens: A Lent Course for Groups Or Individuals Based on the Musical Hamilton
By Rose Hudson-WilkinBishop Rose has written a personal introduction to each theme, exercises and reflections, and provides opening and closing prayers for each chapter. Guidance is given for leaders on how to make best use of the book in a group.
-
The Unofficial Hamilton - an American Musical Location Guide: Where Was the Room Where It Happened?
By Bryan BarrerasThis guide explains how locations from Hamilton's life are connected to the songs and settings in the musical and provides historical information about each location.
-
Where Was the Room Where It Happened? - Hamilton's New York Edition: The Unofficial Hamilton - an American Musical Location...
By B. L. BarrerasWhere Was the Room Where It Happened? - Hamilton's New York Edition: The Unofficial Hamilton - an American Musical Location...
-
Where Was the Room Where It Happened?: The Unofficial Hamilton - An American Musical Location Guide
By Bryan BarrerasThis guide explains how locations from Hamilton's life are connected to the songs and settings in the musical and provides historical information about each location.
-
The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda
By Ishmael Reed“That’s a lot of horse hockey, Hamilton.” Described by the New York Times as “classic activist theater” and “a cross between ‘A Christmas Carol’ and a trial at The Hague’s International Criminal Court.” "In this, his ...
-
The Hamilton Affair: A Novel
By Elizabeth CobbsWith flawless writing, brilliantly drawn characters, and epic scope, The Hamilton Affair tells a story of love forged in revolution and tested by the bitter strife of young America, and will take its place among the greatest novels of ...
-
Where Was the Room Where It Happened?: The Unofficial Hamilton - an American Musical Location Guide
By B. L. BarrerasWhere Was the Room Where It Happened?: The Unofficial Hamilton - an American Musical Location Guide
-
Room
By Emma DonoghueRoom reaffirms our belief in humanity and the astounding resilience of the human spirit. This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the Broadway premiere in Spring 2023.
-
The Ideological Origins of American Federalism
By Alison L. LaCroixCharles Page Smith, James Wilson: Founding Father, 1742–1798 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956), 58. The phrase “doctrine of allegiance” is that of Randolph G. Adams. R. G. Adams, Political Ideas of the American ...