总统唐纳德·特朗普任职时间最长的国家安全顾问约翰·博尔顿谴责他的总统任期对美国造成了危险的损害，并认为2020年选举是最后一道“护栏”保护国家不受他的伤害。
在美国广播公司新闻的独家采访中，博尔顿提供了对他前任老板的残酷指控”他说，“我希望(历史)会记得他是一任总统，他没有让这个国家无可挽回地陷入我们无法回忆起的恶性循环。我们可以度过一个任期——我有绝对的信心，即使这不是保守的共和党人在11月当选的奇迹。两个任期，我更担心。”
在接受美国广播公司新闻部首席全球事务记者玛莎·拉德兹和在他的新书中《发生的房间》，波顿将特朗普描绘成“令人震惊的无知”，做出“不稳定”和“非理性”的决定，无法将他的个人和政治利益与国家利益分开，并被外国对手标记和操纵。
美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的前国家安全顾问约翰·博尔顿与美国广播公司的玛莎·拉德兹谈论他的新书《发生的房间:白宫回忆录》，该书于2020年6月21日上映。
“我不认为他是保守的共和党人。我不会在11月投票给他——当然也不会投票给乔·拜登。我会找到一个保守的共和党人来投票，”他告诉拉德达茨。
博尔顿对批评家说了什么
自6月23日出版的这本书的节选被泄露后，博尔顿面临着来自特朗普及其盟友的巨大批评，因为他背叛了特朗普的信任，也因为特朗普的批评者现在站出来反对总统，因为他拒绝在众议院弹劾听证会上作证，并在参议院审判中对特朗普保持沉默。
特朗普本人指责博尔顿是“怪人”和“骗子”，同时指责他泄露机密信息并对他进行人身攻击:“白宫里的每个人都讨厌约翰·博尔顿。”这些言论与特朗普几个月前在博尔顿离开政府后所说的相矛盾，他在11月告诉记者，“我喜欢约翰·博尔顿。我总是和他相处得很好。”
博尔顿在采访中预测，特朗普的回应将是“火山爆发式的”反击，“特朗普政府的典型做法是，面对批评时，他们不处理批评的实质，而是攻击对方，这是我完全预料到的，不会让我感到意外。”
“总统并不担心外国政府会阅读这本书。他担心美国人民阅读这本书，”博尔顿补充说，他“非常有意识”避免包括机密信息，但是，“这个国家的人民需要听到现实。”
一名联邦法官周六裁定，尽管博尔顿的书可以公开，但未经白宫正式批准出版该书“使他的国家和他自己面临伤害和民事(以及潜在的刑事)责任。”
在拉德达茨要求他支持特朗普的压力下，博尔顿称这是一个“错误”
“我高估了将这变成一个连贯、合理、系统的决策过程，以推进美国利益的机会。...“结果证明这是不对的，”他说，并补充说他呆了17个月，“因为风险如此之高，我认为我可以继续做出贡献。”
为什么博尔顿没有早点说出来
评论家们并没有被博尔顿的解释所动摇，他解释了为什么几个月来一直保持沉默，直到他的书准备发行。去年秋天辞职后——特朗普说他被解雇了——他拒绝了在众议院作证的请求，并表示只有在法官命令他服从传票的情况下，他才会作证。众议院拒绝发出传票，以避免法律纠纷。博尔顿后来表示，如果传票由参议院发出，他会服从，但共和党控制的参议院没有发出传票。
博尔顿现在表示，他的证词并不重要，同时还指责众议院民主党人“弹劾渎职”，因为他们没有花时间，并扩大了调查范围，将博尔顿在书中首次公开指控的潜在可弹劾罪行包括在内。
“我不认为民主党人有智慧或政治理解或能力去改变什么，对他们来说，这是一个唤起自己基础的练习，这样他们就可以说，‘我们弹劾了唐纳德·特朗普，’”他补充道，“这种行为几乎和特朗普一样糟糕，有点类似。”
博尔顿告诉拉德达兹，他现在“有义务让美国人民知道白宫的情况以及他们的领导人在做什么。”
但当被问到他当时有什么公共义务时，他再次转向调查最初是如何进行的。
“帮助民主党人解决他们自己的问题不是我的义务。我的判断是我准备作证。但我认为现在实际上是讲述这个故事的更好时机，因为现在美国人民可以在我们作为一个国家每四年做出的最重要的政治决定的背景下看待这个问题，”他说。
共和党控制的参议院最终投票决定不传唤任何证人在特朗普的审判中作证，但博尔顿现在辩称，这不会有什么不同。
他说:“在国会山上，人们已经下定了决心，我的感觉是在已经造成的所有混乱之中，这种混乱会来来去去，没有人会注意到它。”。
博尔顿在乌克兰见证了什么
尽管国会共和党人对博尔顿的指控反应冷淡，但他的说法可能起到了推波助澜的作用。博尔顿是第一个站出来指控特朗普直接告诉他，他将乌克兰对他的政治对手、前副总统乔·拜登的调查与他持有的美国对乌克兰近4亿美元的安全援助联系在一起的证人。美国正在乌克兰东部省份打击俄罗斯领导的分裂分子。
事实上，博尔顿的指控反驳了特朗普的律师和共和党人提出的许多法律辩护，包括特朗普从未将调查和援助联系起来，特朗普反而关心打击该国的腐败，以及乌克兰人从未知道这种联系。
博尔顿对美国广播公司表示:“总统的辩护是，他关心乌克兰的普遍腐败，这是他的想法——这完全是胡说八道。”他补充说，乌克兰政府“完全理解”这种联系。
“他在讨价还价，利用联邦政府的资源进行调查，我觉得这非常令人不安，”博尔顿说。
他声称，8月20日特朗普亲口告诉他的，当时特朗普“将提供协助与调查直接联系起来”
特朗普否认了这一点，在1月份的推特上写道，“我从未告诉约翰·博尔顿，对乌克兰的援助与对民主党人的调查有关，包括拜登夫妇。”
博尔顿说特朗普在撒谎，“这也不是第一次了。”
博尔顿称，这种联系“在政府高层也得到广泛理解”，包括白宫、国务院、五角大楼和司法部。
具体来说，国务卿迈克·庞贝、国防部长马克·埃斯珀和司法部长比尔·巴尔都意识到了这一点，并且同样“感到震惊”，根据博尔顿的说法，他还说，他与白宫法律顾问办公室和巴尔就此事的合法性进行了谈话——巴尔的发言人否认了这一点。
博尔顿表示，他们都在积极努力说服特朗普将援助与任何乌克兰调查分开。
“根据弹劾调查，善后人员认为，我们这些人，比如庞贝和斯珀以及我自己，应该是寻找可弹劾罪行证据的初级土拨鼠联邦调查局特工。我们所做的一切都是为了让乌克兰获得援助，因为这样做符合美国的利益。”
美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的前国家安全顾问约翰·博尔顿与美国广播公司的玛莎·拉德兹谈论他的新书《发生的房间:白宫回忆录》，该书于2020年6月21日上映。
博尔顿所说的令人不安的模式
尽管对乌克兰的援助最终被释放，但波顿表示，特朗普在乌克兰的行为是他将个人关系和政治利益置于国家利益之上的更大“模式”的一部分国家安全优先权。
“当谈到连任时，他的注意力是无限的，他的注意力非常直接。博尔顿告诉美国广播公司说:“很遗憾，在国家安全问题上，没有更多这样的事情发生。
他列举了“掌握了敲钟艺术”的强人领导人的具体例子，包括中国的习近平、俄国的弗拉基米尔·普京和土耳其的雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安。
博尔顿称，埃尔多安要求特朗普代表哈尔克银行(Halkbank)进行干预。哈尔克银行是一家土耳其国有银行，因违反美国对伊朗的制裁而面临可能的刑事指控，据说其运作方式像是埃尔多安家族的行贿基金。
“总统曾一度对埃尔多安说，‘瞧，纽约的那些检察官都是奥巴马的人。等到我让我的人进来，然后我们会处理好这件事，”博尔顿说。
“我从未听到任何总统说过这样的话。永远不会，”博尔顿补充道。"对我来说，这确实像是妨碍司法公正。"
不管对埃尔多安说了什么，去年秋天，在一项谈判解决方案破裂后，哈尔克银行因欺诈、洗钱和违反制裁而被起诉。
尽管一些批评者指责博尔顿的故事将削弱特朗普在世界舞台上的地位，但博尔顿回击称，他“没有告诉弗拉基米尔·普京任何他不知道的事情——而是告诉美国人民一些他们可能不知道的事情。”
“朝鲜人，或许还有伊朗、中国和俄罗斯，认为如果他们能把特朗普和他的顾问分开，就能让他达成协议。...他们认为他根本不知道自己在做什么取舍，”博尔顿补充道。
博尔顿说特朗普是什么样的
博尔顿表示，达成一项能提升他作为交易撮合者的形象并支持他连任的交易是危险的。
“除了对唐纳德·特朗普的连任有利之外，我真的看不出有什么指导原则，”博尔顿告诉拉德达茨。“没有一致的基础，没有战略，没有哲学，决策是以非常分散的方式做出的，尤其是在国家安全政策这个潜在的致命领域。这对共和国来说是一个危险。”
除了对特朗普外交政策或哲学的批评之外，波顿还将矛头对准了特朗普的决策，对准了他自己:“总统的思维过程是一条永不停歇的随机之路。我的意思是，这就像是一次随机漫步遇上了土拨鼠日。”
“我不知道白宫每天会发生什么，”他补充道，称总统“不知情得令人震惊”，并表示“因此，在一段时间内就政策发展进行持续对话非常困难。”
博尔顿称，特朗普在情报简报会上说的和听的一样多，而这远没有其他总统频繁。他听取了不知名的外部顾问的意见，博尔顿称这些信息“不准确”，没有经过专业人员的审核，他也无法掌握“有助于了解当前许多情况的历史点滴”。我们只是在许多方面没有取得进展，”博尔顿说。
“在日常生活中，反复无常、冲动、断断续续是一回事。博尔顿说:“当你陷入危机或非常危险的情况时，如果总统不把注意力集中在他面前的事情上，这不仅变得重要，而且有潜在的危险。
拉德达茨反驳了博尔顿的描述，指出自己过去曾称赞特朗普是一个交易撮合者，有“突出”的“估量”对手的能力。
博尔顿说，他当时并不“特别”相信这一点，但他必须为总统辩护，并把“希望的胜利置于有限的经验之上”
Bolton says he hopes Trump is 1-term president, warns country imperiled by his reelection
PresidentDonald Trump's longest-serving national security adviserJohn Boltoncondemned his presidency as dangerously damaging to the United States and argued the 2020electionis the last "guardrail" toprotect the country from him.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Bolton offered abrutal indictment of his former boss, saying, "I hope (history) will remember him as a one-term president who didn't plunge the country irretrievably into a downward spiral we can't recall from. We can get over one term -- I have absolute confidence, even if it's not the miracle of a conservative Republican being elected in November. Two terms, I'm more troubled about."
In the interview with ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz andin his new book, "The Room Where It Happened," Boltonpaints Trump as"stunningly uninformed," making "erratic" and "irrational" decisions, unable to separate his personal and political interests from the country's, and marked and manipulated by foreign adversaries.
John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, talks with ABC's Martha Raddatz, about his new book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," airing June 21, 2020.
"I don't think he's a conservative Republican. I'm not going to vote for him in November -- certainly not going to vote for Joe Biden either. I'm going to figure out a conservative Republican to vote in," he told Raddatz.
What Bolton says to critics
Since excerpts of the book -- out June 23 -- leaked, Bolton has faced a tsunami of criticism both from Trump and his allies, for betraying his trust, and from Trump's critics, for coming out against the president now when he refused to testify before the House impeachment hearings and stayed silent with Trump on trial in the Senate.
Trump himself has blasted Bolton as a "wacko" and "liar," while accusing him of revealing classified information and attacking him personally: "Everybody in the White House hated John Bolton." Those comments contradict what Trump said just months ago after Bolton left the administration, telling reporters in November, "I like John Bolton. I always got along with him."
In his interview, Bolton predicted Trump's response would be "volcanic," countering, "It's typical of the Trump administration that when faced with criticism, they don't deal with the substance of the criticism, they attack the person, which I fully expect and doesn't surprise me."
"The president isn't worried about foreign governments reading this book. He's worried about the American people reading this book," Bolton added, saying he was "very conscious" to avoid including classified information, but, "The people of the country need to hear the reality."
A federal judge ruled Saturday that while Bolton's book can be released, publishing it without formal clearance from the White House "has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability."
Pressed by Raddatz on his own support for Trump, Bolton called it a "mistake."
"I overrated the chances to make this into a coherent, rational, systematic, decision-making process, to advance American interests. ... That turned out not to be right," he said, adding that he stayed for 17 months "because the stakes are so high that I thought I could continue to make a contribution."
Why Bolton didn't speak out sooner
The critics have not been swayed by Bolton's explanation for why he stayed silent for months, until his book was ready for release. Last fall after resigning -- Trump said he was fired -- he rejected a request to testify before the House and said he would testify only if a judge ordered him to obey a subpoena. The House declined to issue the subpoena to avoid a legal battle. Bolton later said he would obey a subpoena if one was issued by the Senate, but the Republican-controlled Senate did not issue one.
Bolton now said his testimony wouldn't have mattered, while also accusing House Democrats of "impeachment malpractice" for not taking their time and widening their inquiry's scope to include potentially impeachable offenses that Bolton only alleges publicly for the first time in his book.
"I didn't think the Democrats had the wit or the political understanding or the reach to change what, for them, was an exercise in arousing their own base, so that they could say, 'We impeached Donald Trump,'" he said, adding "that conduct (is) almost as bad and somewhat equivalent to Trump."
Bolton told Raddatz he now has "an obligation to let the American people know what it's like in the White House and what their leader is doing."
But pressed about what public obligation he had at the time, he again turned to how the probe was initially conducted.
"It's not my obligation to help the Democrats out of their own problem. My judgment was that I was prepared to testify. But I think now this is actually a better time to tell the story because now the American people can look at it in the context of the most important political decision we make as a nation every four years," he said.
The Republican-controlled Senate ultimately voted not to call any witnesses to testify in Trump's trial, but Bolton now argues it wouldn't have made a difference.
"Minds were made up on Capitol Hill, and my feeling was in the midst of all the chaos that had been created, this would have come and gone, and nobody would have paid any attention to it," he said.
What Bolton witnessed on Ukraine
While congressional Republicans have had a muted response to Bolton's allegations, his account might have moved the needle. Bolton is the first witness to come forward alleging that Trump directly told him that he was tying Ukrainian investigations into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, to his hold on nearly $400 million of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, which is battling Russian-led separatists in its eastern provinces.
In fact, Bolton's claims countered many of the legal defenses put forward by Trump's lawyers and Republicans, including that Trump never connected the investigations and the assistance, that Trump instead cared about combating corruption in the country and that the Ukrainians never knew about the connection.
"The defense of the president was, he cares about the general corruption in the Ukraine, and that was on his mind -- that's utter nonsense," Bolton told ABC News, adding the Ukrainian government "fully understood" the connection.
"He was bargaining to get the investigation, using the resources of the federal government, which I found very disturbing," Bolton said.
He heard it from Trump himself on Aug. 20, he claimed, when Trump "directly linked the provision of that assistance with the investigation."
Trump has denied that, tweeting in January, "I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens."
Bolton said Trump is lying, "and it's not the first time either."
According to Bolton, that connection was "widely understood at senior levels in the government," too, including the White House, State Department, Pentagon and Department of Justice.
Specifically, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Attorney General Bill Barr were all aware and equally "alarmed" as he, according to Bolton, who also said he had conversations about the legality of it with the White House counsel's office and Barr -- something Barr's spokesperson has denied.
Bolton said they all were actively working to convince Trump to separate the aid from any Ukrainian probe.
"People in the aftermath, in light of the impeachment investigation thought that those of us like Pompeo and Esper and myself should have been sort of junior woodchuck FBI agents looking for evidence of impeachable offenses. What we were all trying to do was get the assistance released to the Ukraine because it was in America's interests to do so."
John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, talks with ABC's Martha Raddatz, about his new book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," airing June 21, 2020.
What Bolton calls a troubling pattern
While the aid to Ukraine was ultimately released, Bolton said Trump's actions there were part of a larger "pattern" of behavior where he put his personal relationships and political interests above the country'snational securitypriorities.
"When it comes to reelection, his attention span was infinite, and his focus was very direct. It's just too bad there wasn't more of that when it came to national security," Bolton told ABC News.
He cited specific examples of strongmen leaders who had "mastered the art of ringing (Trump's) bells," including Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
According to Bolton, Erdogan asked Trump to intervene on behalf of Halkbank, a Turkish state-run bank that faced possible criminal charges for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and was said to operate like a slush fund for Erdogan's family.
"And the president said to Erdogan at one point, 'Look, those prosecutors in New York are Obama people. Wait till I get my people in and then we'll take care of this,'" Bolton said.
"I've never heard any president say anything like that. Ever," Bolton added. "It did feel like obstruction of justice to me."
Whatever was said to Erdogan, Halkbank was indicted last fall for fraud, money laundering, and sanctions violations after a negotiated settlement fell apart.
While some critics have charged that Bolton's stories will weaken Trump's position on the world stage, Bolton shot back he's "not telling Vladimir Putin anything that he doesn't already know -- and it's telling the American people something they may not be aware of."
"The North Koreans, as perhaps with Iran and China and Russia as well, think that if they can separate Trump from his advisers, they can get him to make a deal. ... They see him as somebody who's fundamentally not aware of the trade-offs he's making," Bolton added.
What Bolton says Trump is like
That drive to make a deal that would burnish his image as a deal-maker and support his reelection was dangerous, according to Bolton.
"There really isn't any guiding principle that I was able to discern other than what's good for Donald Trump's reelection," Bolton told Raddatz. "There's no coherent basis, no strategy, no philosophy, and decisions are made in a very scatter-shot fashion, especially in the potentially mortal field of national security policy. This is a danger for the republic."
Beyond his critiques of Trump's foreign policy or philosophy, Bolton takes aim at Trump's decision-making, at the man himself: "The president's thought process is a random walk that never stops. I mean, it's like a random walk meets Groundhog Day."
"I couldn't tell from day to day in the White House what was gonna happen," he added, calling the president "stunningly uninformed" and saying it was "very difficult, therefore, to have sustained conversations about policy development over a period of time."
According to Bolton, Trump spoke about as much as he listened during his intelligence briefings, which were far less frequent than other presidents. He listened to unknown outside advisers who gave him, what Bolton describes as "inaccurate" information that was not vetted by the professional staff, and he could not grasp "bits of history that help to inform the current context of a lot of situations. And we just never made headway on many of them," Bolton said.
"It's one thing to be erratic and impulsive and episodic and anecdotal on day-to-day stuff. It's when you get into crisis situations or very high-stakes circumstances where it becomes not only important, but potentially dangerous if the president doesn't maintain the focus on what's in front of him," Bolton said.
Raddatz pushed back on Bolton's characterization, pointing to his own past praise of Trump as a deal-maker with an "outstanding" ability to "size up" opponents.
Bolton said he didn't "particularly" believe that at the time, but had to defend the president and put "the triumph of hope over limited experience at that point."
