The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

John Bolton

Jun 2020 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by Robert Petkoff

About this audiobook

JOHN BOLTON READS THE EPILOGUE!

As President Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton spent many of 453 days in the room where it happened, and the facts speak for themselves.

The result is a “scathing and revelatory” (The New Yorker) 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 its 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 “first tell-all memoir by such a high-ranking official” (The New York Times) 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.

Ratings and reviews

The dialog from Robert Petkoff is crisp, clear and easy to understand while invoking emotion that makes you feel like you are in the same room as John Bolton. Makes for a great listen during your commute. or to read along with the print or eBook. I would point out that the audio book on Google Play does not provide any direct reference to the citations that are given in the printed version, so I strongly recommend picking up both. As for the review of this book itself, this book will challenge your views regardless if you are the most conservative republican or the most liberal democrat, and it will show you that the United States has a serious problem. We may already have our perception about domestic issues including the growing racial divides, the coronavirus pandemic, and the state of the economy already shape and form our opinion about President Donald Trump, but John Bolton's memoir is a successfully candid and detailed account of the dysfunction of the current Trump administration and his foreign policies. This book is no means a simple mud-throwing complaint to a national leader, but what I would judge to be a fair and highly self-critical review of his presence, influence, and service to Trump and his administration colleagues. He goes into remarkable detail of the administrations’ actions throughout most of 2018 and 2019 and provides clear public citations to back up the facts and arguments that he presents. Taking the time to read this book, combined with studying the various media reports, official records, and personal statements (including Trump’s infuriating tweets), you will come to realize the dangerous position our country is now in. While I personally cannot agree to many of the political stances of that of John Bolton including his shallow perceptions and beliefs of the Democratic party and that of the mass media, I find his logic and philosophy to what he believes is best for the country during his service as National Security Advisor honorable. I feel his only dishonor is to not testify to congress during the impeachment of Trump (as this has been discussed in the media interviews during the week of publication), however, I clearly agree that even this account would not have broken through the partisan divide that both parties in the legislation to make a difference in the impeachment process. However, it can make a difference in American lives who reads this book. That being said, this book is a critical must-read for any U.S. citizen before the general election. It brings a clear picture of what Trump’s administration really looks like.

If you really read this book thru, than your an idiot liberal begging for attention. you also do not have the emotional strength to lose both legally and overwhelmingly. You lost, and will lose again, quitting at life and being a solid member of society will not change that. The book is nothing but another pacifier for snowflakes to drool on. You probably also paid for the mueller report too hahahaha

Interested in reading this even though I'm a conservative. People must go with in open mind tward person opinion in polotics... Which is clearly missing these days. I'll change my experience when and if necessary.

About the author

John Bolton is the former National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump. He served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006. He has spent many years of his career in public service and held high-level positions in the Administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Ambassador Bolton is also an attorney, and was in private practice in Washington, DC, from 1974 to 2018, except when he was in government service. Ambassador Bolton was born in Baltimore in 1948. He graduated with a BA, summa cum laude, from Yale College and received his JD from Yale Law School. He currently lives in Bethesda, Maryland.