Lies, Politics and Democracy: John Bolton (interview) | FRONTLINE

John Bolton served as national security adviser to Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019. He was previously the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and is the author of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.

The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on May 19, 2022. It has been edited for clarity and length.

#Frontline #Interview #JohnBolton

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CHAPTERS:
Trump’s Rise - 00:00
The Decision to Join the Trump Administration - 03:58
Trump’s View of Authoritarian Leaders - 07:41
Undermining Elections - 10:14
The First Impeachment - 13:56
The Decision to Leave the White House - 23:37
The Lafayette Square Incident - 27:22
The 2020 Election and Initial Claims of Fraud - 31:13
Liz Cheney Pushes Back on Trump - 35:23
Mike Pence’s Role in the Administration - 37:58
The Republican Response to Jan. 6 - 45:41

[MrHeathzilla]

When John Bolton is one of your most sober-minded advisers, you have a problem

[desertdetroiter]

Bolton is playing games here. At no point did Al Gore EVER say that he wouldn’t accept the results. There’s no equivalence here, Bolton. Knock it off.

[chicagofineart]

If John Bolton thought of himself as the "guard rails" of the administration, that's the time I'd get off the bus. Bolton does Bolton quite well.

[Javdoc]

This guy (and Barr) are the "broken clock" analogy taking human form.

[jdocean]

He just absolves all republican senators who wouldn’t listen to testimony and evidence and let him off strictly along partisan lines. Ignoring the fact that he had actually COMMITTED CRIMES BOLTON!

[SandraWade]

Is he SERIOUS? Comparing Stacey Abrams to Donald Trump? I turned the interview off after that

[colkoch]

I really wish there had been one or two follow up questions to some of the things Bolton maintains. I'm capable of listening to Bolton's chicken hawk ideology, but when he states Democrats were responsible for Trump's ideas of omnipotence after the first impeachment, I would have liked a follow up question such as: Don't you think Republicans were more responsible since they totally caved, except for Romney? Adam Schiff absolutely pointed this out in his final comments during the impeachment. He warned them.

[benniecrawford]

Bolton is at his core always a weasel.

[juliansandoval]

wasn't this dude the one who started the whole Iraq invasion thing?

[luchingerremo]

He always speaks of national security but doesn‘t see risk for national security right in front of his eyes.

[Rohit-ozor]

Bolton- one of the architects of the Iraq war taking about morality

[bobwerner]

I'm thinking nicely worded BULLSHIT 💩 I'll give him a half star for moments of candor and it was back to BS City just saying

[jaredmcnamara]

Bolton points out that the system was stressed and it held firm. What he misses is that there is work underway to take away the protections and roadblocks to the system and next time it gets stressed, it will fail.

[leoarc]

What a massive, career-driven, hypocrite.

[mikhailbabushkinum]

What a despicable war criminal, I don’t know how does he manage to sleep at night

[abirch]

Bolton exudes this air of authority and confidence and frankness. But while he might convince some, he can't fool me. You could hear the bias when he tries to use moral equivalency when comparing the republicans and the democrats, he is very dishonest in his assertions. For example he said that it was problematic for amount connections with Russia and Trump can't admit it because it would have delegitimized his presidency, but then he goes on to sort of suggest that the Mueller investigation didn't conclude that, which is blatantly untrue, even with the amount of obstruction and roadblocks they had to deal with. Not to mention that Rosenstein sabotaged that investigation from the beginning. Next he credits himself with the withdrawal from the Iran deal as though that was a wise decision. America needs a new breed of politicians who are forward thinking and can confront the issues and challenges of the 21st century not has beens and relics of a bygone era

[YourCritic]

After everything we all saw about Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election, he still voted for Trump instead of Hillary, that's all you need to know about John Bolton. In terms of political ideologies and foreign policy strategies, Bolton is close to being a complete nut-case (seems he never got the memo on blowback) ... but at least he's not shy about speaking candidly about Trump. Though, I wonder whether he would be a little less vocal compared to other Republicans if he was running for political office.

[dominique]

The Supremes did affect the 2000 outcome. It stopped the FL recount. There's no question in that.

Once the Supremes chose the president in 2000 we saluted sharply and got on with the business of governance.

Not at all equivalent to what happened in 2020 unless I missed the Capitol attack back then.

[leeboriack]

I appreciate the journalist not injecting their “feelings” and just asking simple questions and not leading Bolton conversation wise.

[T-]

Bolton reminds me of the old saying “The pot calling the kettle black.”