The Room Where It Happened

A White House Memoir

De: John Bolton

Narrado por: Robert Petkoff, John Bolton - epilogue

John Bolton reads the epilogue!

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 the 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 early on, “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.

©2020 John Bolton (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio

A telling book!

John Bolton’s book is an insiders guide to the chaos that happens almost daily in Trump’s White House. Plus it shows Trump’s inadequacies of asking questions that at the time indicates how fragile Trump’s cognitive abilities really are.
Only negative is that the first couple of hours of the book are fairly dry until the book starts speaking of Bolton’s appointment to NSA. This book is perfect for anyone who has come to the belief that Trump is a habitual liar & incompetent as President of OUR country!

LOTS OF INFO

All political books by their nature are filled with material that is either loved or hated by most readers.
Any opinion I share would not do a first time reader any good. I will limit my review to structure performance and context.
This book is written mostly in diary form with chapters based on issues. The author does not shy away from any subject.'
It is up to the readers to determine what they think of the content. I will only say for those interested in international relations,
this is a detailed look at the worlds hot spots. The narration is good up to now. I have chosen to write this before I read the last part so any of my opinions don't taint this review. This book is well written and worth reading.

Books like this are essential reading.

I am seeing a lot of review bombing by hard core Trump supporters. If anything that alone should tell you there is something here worth your time regardless of your political views.

The chapters are not exactly easy to follow at first. They focus on events that the author deemed worth covering in detail. That being said they are organized in a mostly chronological order.

The book focuses on specific events that most of us have heard about during this administration. The book is a good description of what it was actually like to be there in the situation rooms, Oval Office, and various meeting behind closed doors.

Narration is good.

It’s worth your time.

The NeoCons

Great insight but it’s as much about Obama’s failed policies, Shillary’s illegality and the NeiCon view of global policy as it is an indictment of Trump.

Bolton is an evil person

While the news headlines focus on his criticisms of Trump, this book reveals how evil Bolton his himself. He represents the worst of the US: He aggressively thinks that he is right and everyone else who doesn't agree with him is deeply wrong. Much of his criticisms of others (both in the US and abroad) are hypocritical with his own hyper partisan, belligerent, bullying, and narrow-minded approach. He is such a terrible person that I (who am anti-Trump) actually feel sympathetic towards Trump. Bolton is such a terrible person that he actually makes Trump look reasonable.

For pundits and politicos

I wanted to hear the inside story but was not able to keep up with all the events and issues he details.

mostly blowing hot air

though revealing in some ways, no real surprise here. Bolton mostly comes off bitter and elitest

Great Read

Loved it, great read , highly recommend that all Americans read this prior to the election.

Interesting take on Trump

The take by a quintessential Washington insider on a unique and unlikely president. As a life long conservative, its dififficult to understand a man like Trump ever wanting to be the Chief Executive and all the limits on power that a president has. Boltons book opens a few windows on that front. Views of how the president functioned away from the cameras makes a case for why the 2020 elections may be one of the most important since Ronald Reagans.
The narrator made it easy to visualize John Bolton in each and every scene described and his frustration with a non-political man refuses to be managed and guided through the daily pitfalls of D.C. in an era of our out of control Congress.
If you are a student of Political history, this is a book you must add to your list.

He hires the best people and they all hate him

Not a fan of Trump, but what I find even more disgusting are all the leeches that cling to him for the opportunity. Bolton with all his assumed integrity is no different, but his hubris failed to stopped him from doing what he knew is right to work for a guy he knew he disliked from start. He then proceeded to essentially tell us guys who grew up around charlatans and gang bangers that the President is a thug that can't be trusted. Duh.