July 10

Trump, according to one of the inner circle

I haven’t posted anything since April 23 because my computer died, and I was slow in buying another, loading new programs, transferring data¹ and generally getting organized.  It would be an understatement to say that much has happened in the interim.  Before registering my thoughts on the killing of George Floyd and the mishandling of the virus pandemic, I’ll comment, while the impression is fresh, on a book I just read.

John Bolton’s oddly-titled The Room Where It Happened is a memoir of his seventeen-month tenure as National Security Advisor.  The buildup to publication, including Trump’s attempt to block it, suggested that the book would be a devastating portrait of our esteemed leader.  It hardly is sensational in tone, being a detailed and often tedious narrative of various challenges and crises faced during that time. Most of Bolton’s comments about and appraisals of Trump are not sweeping, but are connected to the discussions surrounding those events.  They certainly do reflect Bolton’s low opinion of Trump, but then Bolton expressed a low opinion of most of those in the executive branch — including Cabinet members and permanent staff — and of the Obama administration, and of foreign leaders, so a low opinion of the President is, up to a point, just a reflection of Bolton’s disappointment that others aren’t as wise as he.

True, he does give many examples of Trump’s limitations and of the near-impossibility of keeping him focused, but with a few exceptions these are details added to a picture well known to any reader of The New York Times or The Washington Post.  On one topic, Trump’s dealings with North Korea, including his fawning over Kim Jong-un, Bolton is kinder and less detailed than the news reports.

One exception pertains to discussions between Trump and Xi Jinping, President of China, on June 18, 2019. Trump, “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.”² This is an example, although a shockingly blatant one, of Trump’s known subordination of policy to re-election, the familiar instance being the manipulation of aid to Ukraine. However, on this topic Bolton does make a general appraisal: “I am hard pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by election calculations.”³  

Bolton confirms reports that Trump was warned of the dangers of coronavirus infection but did little or nothing to prevent disaster.  His discussion is defensive, reacting to criticism of the structure of the NSC, but it rings true. He makes the point by quoting a New York Times report, then adding his evaluation of Trump’s response:

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.

“Thus, responding to the coronavirus, the NSC biosecurity team functioned exactly as it was supposed to.  It was the chair behind the Resolute desk that was empty.”⁴

Bolton’s discussion of the Ukraine issue — whether Trump demanded election help in exchange for releasing aid to Ukraine — is confusing.  However, he refers to Trump’s request to President Zelensky of Ukraine for “a favor,” makes clear that Trump was holding up transfer of the funds, and comments as follows: “When, in 1992, Bush 41 supporters suggested he ask foreign governments to help out in his failing campaign against Bill Clinton, Bush and Jim Baker completely rejected the idea. Trump did the precise opposite.”⁵

Bolton criticizes the way in which the House went about impeaching Trump.  There is some merit in his appraisal, along with some of his ususal negative attitude toward Democrats.  One point he makes is that narrowing the charge to the Ukraine issue “provided no opportunity to explore Trump’s ham-handed involvement in other matters — criminal and civil, international and domestic — that should not properly be subject to manipulation by a President for personal reasons (political, economic, or any other).”  He suggests that if attention had been directed toward the “broader pattern of [Trump’s] behavior . . . there might have been a greater chance to persuade others that ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ had been perpetrated.”⁶  Perhaps, but the Senate would have acquitted anyway; contrary to Bolton’s impression, not only Democrats play politics.  However, a broader and longer inquiry might have been the better plan in terms of demonstrating to the public just how important it is to send Trump into retirement next January.

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36.Fortunately, a tech-savvy son retrieved files from the dead box.

37. The Room Where It Happened, p. 301

38. Ibid, at 485

39. Ibid, at 317

40. Ibid, at 468

41. Ibid, at 485. In the ellipsis, the author refers to examples of what, elsewhere, he describes as “Trump’s penchant to, in effect, give favors to dictators he liked. . . .” Ibid, at 458.

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