John Bolton Quotes

[On the Tea Party movement] I like it because their view of government is essentially the same as mine, and I like it because they're regular people who, but for the shock of Obama's radicalism, probably would not have gotten active in politics.

In an October 2019 interview, in the midst of the Ukraine impeachment crisis, Kelly said he had told Trump, "Whatever you do- and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place- I said whatever you do, don't hire a 'yes man', someone who won't tell you the truth- don't do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached." Trump flatly denied Kelly had made such a statement: "John Kelly never said that, he never said anything like that. If he would have said that I would have thrown him out of the office." He just wants to come back into the action like everybody else does." And Stephanie Grisham, previously one of the First Lady's Furies, now White House press secretary, pronounced ex cathedra, "I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President." These quotes speak volumes about the people who uttered them. With Kelly's departure and Mulvaney's appointment, all effective efforts at managing the Executive Office of the President ceased. Both domestic policy strategy and political strategy, never strong suits, all but disappeared; personal decisions deteriorated further, and the general chaos spread. The crisis over Ukraine followed. There was a lot of evidence that Kelly's hypothesis was entirely correct.

The only thing that will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons is regime change in Tehran.

[On entitlements] I think we've got to go after them root and branch...if we're ever gonna do it, this is the time to do it.

Pakistan is the only government consisting simultaneously of arsonists and firefighters.

I'm against abortion as a form of birth control, and I basically hold to the Reagan position.

Trump's reflex effort to talk his way out of anything, however, even a public health crisis, only undercut his and the nation's credibility, with his statements looking more like political damage control than responsible public-health advice. One particularly egregious example was a news report that the Administration tried to classify certain public-health information regarding the United States on the spurious excuse that China was involved. Of course China was involved, which is a reason to disseminate the information broadly, not restrict it. This, Trump was reluctant to do throughout the crisis, for fear of adversely affecting the elusive definitive trade deal with China, or offending the ever-so-sensitive Xi Jinping.

What's needed in this next campaign is to say, with clarity, why a pro-individual-liberty, small-government perspective is what most Americans really want.

Any number of commentators have observed that the government's pre-clearance review process is riddled with constitutional deficiencies; the potential for obstruction, censorship, and abuse; and harmful to timely debate on critical public policy issues. You can add my name to the list of critics, especially when the process is in the hands of a President so averse to criticism that the idea of banning books comes to him naturally and serenely.

Trump spoke with Xi Jinping by phone on June 18, ahead of 2019's Osaka G20 summit, when they would next meet. Trump began by telling Xi he missed him and then said that the most popular thing he had ever been involved with was making a trade deal with China, which would be a big plus politically. They agreed their economic teams could continue meeting. The G20 bilateral arrived, and during the usual media mayhem at the start, Trump said, "we've become friends. My trip to Beijing with my family was one of the most incredible of my life." With the press gone, Xi said this is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. He said that some (unnamed) political figures in the United States were making erroneous judgments by calling for a new cold war, this time between China and the United States. Whether Xi meant to finger the Democrats, or some of us sitting on the US side of the table, I don't know, but Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats. He then, 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. I would print Trump's exact words, but the government's prepublication review process has decided otherwise.

I've heard over and over that people don't vote on the basis of foreign policy.

One attraction of being National Security Advisor is the sheer multiplicity and volume of challenges that confront you. If you don't like turmoil, uncertainty, and risk- all while being constantly overwhelmed with information, decisions to be made, and the sheer amount of work, and enlivened by international and domestic personality and ego conflicts beyond description- try something else. It is exhilarating, but it is nearly impossible to explain to outsiders how the pieces fit together, which they often don't in any coherent way.

[Recalling Bill Clinton, a Yale University classmate] I remember him as very gregarious, never in class, always talking to someone out in the hallway or in the dining room or something like that. I remember her (Hillary Rodham Clinton) as very rigid, unfriendly, hard-core left-winger.

[Recalling George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State James Baker:] [T]he best secretary of state since Dean Acheson. I say that because he and Bush 41 had an incredibly tempestuous period in history, and they navigated through it with great success.

There were a lot of people who were Reaganauts going in, as there are always people who are conservatives going in. But they don't act like conservatives after they get there. There is skill to maneuvering the bureaucracy. And I think one argument I could make would be, I've never run for office, I'm not a conventional politician, that's for sure, but I have been in government, and I know how it works. I have actually gotten things done in the government.