The Dispatch Podcast - When America Is Weak | Interview: John Bolton

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton joins Jamie to discuss how the Israel-Hamas war affects U.S. national security, his time in the Trump administration, and the future of  American democracy. Show notes: -Video version Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Conditions apply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. This is Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is someone I have talked to many, many times over the last, really almost two decades. And that is Ambassador John Bolton, of course, because of his name, he was certainly an ambassador, the ambassador to the United Nations during the presidency of George W. Bush. He was for a time, the National Security Advisor, to President Donald Trump, although, as many know, that did not end. well between them. We talk in this episode about many things, but mainly the Israel-Gaza war, which he will argue is really a much broader war than that, and about what

2024 looks like in terms of the Republican primary and the potential of a second Donald Trump presidency. I think you're going to find this episode interesting. So without further do, I give you Ambassador John Bolton. Mr. Ambassador, welcome to the Dispatch podcast. Great to be with you. It's great to talk to you again, Mr. Ambassador. We've talked many times over the years. I want to begin by bringing us back to October 7th of this year, the tragic events in Israel.

And I want to ask you, if there was a president, John Bolton, in the White House at that time, how would you have reacted differently to seeing what happened to an ally in the Middle East? Well, I think President Biden reacted appropriately at the beginning by traveling to Israel, by showing his support for Israel in that terrible time. But I think from the beginning, he has not realized fully what the nature of Israel's situation is. This is not, in my view, a Hamas versus Israel war. it's not an Arab-Israeli conflict. I think that while we don't know the full dimensions or many of the details, that this Hamas attack was coordinated by Iran. I think it's part of what they call their

ring of fire strategy developed by Qasem Soleimani to isolate and pressure Israel. I think that We're in the opening stages of a much more complex scenario. As I say, I don't pretend to know the full dimensions of it. But I think at this point, Iran is dominating the narrative and dominating the momentum. And I think the United States is now consumed by the government of the United States is now consumed by a fear that the conflict will escalate when in fact, I think it's already escalated. I don't think the Hezbollah attacks. Israel's north are coincidental. I don't think the Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea or potentially on Israel are coincidental. I think these things are connected, and I think they all

run through Tehran. So do you believe a regional war is either started already or is inevitable? Well, I think it's started already. I don't think that means Iran is committed to all-out conventional warfare. I think it hopes to see Israel's government divided and indecisive. I think it hopes to split the West with a narrative about Israel violating the laws of war, which to date at least, I think is pure propaganda. And I think it hopes to intimidate and deter the Biden White House, as I believe it has done so far, both in terms of the effort to slow Israel down to extend the pause for the exchange of hostages into a permanent ceasefire, an approach I call the terrorist veto that the administration says, yes, Israel has a right to self-defense, but not really, because

the fullest kind of self-defense means eliminating the Hamas threat and the steps that the administration is urging Israel to take will mean that it never achieves that objective. Going back to October 7th, you're in the White House as President John Bolton, what would you then advise Israel to do in order to deter Iran or undermine Iran's goal? What would you order the United States military to do in order to deter Iran? Well, I think Israel made the correct decision after an incredible intelligence failure, obviously, that the only way to keep Israel free of Hamas terror is to eliminate Hamas's capability to engage in terrorist activity. And I would have fully supported that and then meant it by not falling victim to this propaganda that

somehow Israel is doing something the laws of war don't permit. There's not been a credible allegation that Israel has deliberately attacked a civilian target as opposed to military targets, or has anybody been specific that a particular attack didn't take proportionality into consideration? But it's just propaganda about the way the war looks on television that's inhibiting Israel from accomplishing that objective. But I would have gone beyond that to say that if Israel decided that self-defense required making Iran pay a price, that the U.S. would support action against Iran directly. Just as I think the administration has been inadequate in responding to Iranian-directed attacks through Shia militia groups in Iran and through the Houthi rebels in Yemen

against U.S. ships in the Red Sea and U.S. personnel, civilian, and military in Iraq. If Iran doesn't pay a price, for the price it's making others pay, it will consider its conduct vindicated and this kind of activity will continue. You mentioned there's a fear of a regional war. I think, you know, naturally anybody fears a war spiraling into a place that is larger. What do you think would happen

if Israel did take action against Iran took out some of its nuclear facilities or some other type of action? How do you think the Iran would respond, other Arab countries in the region would respond? Well, I think the Arab Gulf countries, at least at the leadership level, appreciate this is not an Arab-Israeli war. They see Iran as the puppet master here. Unfortunately, they're not saying that publicly.

I think that could make a big difference. I would hope they would come to that point, but I'm not expecting it. I think there would be ritual criticism of Israel, but I don't think it would be significant. And as for Iran, I think it's very much open to question what they would do in response. I think they would be so stunned if Israel or the United States actually took action against Iran that it could cause a real crisis in their government. We're not looking for a wider war, that's for sure. But we're also looking for an answer to this threat that Israel and the Gulf Arab states face together

from a potentially nuclear-capable terrorist supporting Iran. And while we don't want the conflict to spread to an unacceptable level, one thing to keep in mind is this question. Would you rather deal with Iran today or after it gets nuclear weapons? Mr. Bester, I believe, and correct me if I'm mistaken, you just returned from the Middle East a few weeks ago. Did you talk to any of your Arab contacts, Arab leaders over there, and what were they telling you behind the scenes?

Well, I think they fully understand that Iran is the source of this problem. I think they, as I say, are reluctant to say that publicly, but I think in their own analysis, they don't think Hamas woke up one fine day and decided to commit suicide on itself. I think they do see a pattern, and they didn't have a clear idea either of what Iran's strategy was. But you have to ask, why would Hamas engage in the barbaric attacks, of October the 7th, unless it thought it had a backup somewhere. Maybe it thought, or maybe Iran felt that the government of Israel would crack, that there wouldn't be an effective response, or that maybe the Israeli defense forces would get bogged down in the Gaza Strip, which would then permit Hezbollah to attack more forcefully in the north. I could give you a dozen scenarios that are plausible. The direction it takes still largely lies in Iran's hands, and I think that's very dangerous. Would you as president on October 7th authorized U.S. Special Forces to try to get the American hostages that are in Gaza? Well, I think obviously there's this, the main effort

militarily to do that was done by the IDF, but I certainly would have offered American special forces to work with the Israelis and work together. I don't, I think it's the responsibility of the American government to look out for its own citizens, including dual nationals. I don't think you seed that task ever to any other nation. But I think in terms of the operational realities on the ground, we'd be far better working with Israel and doing it together. And I suspect that they would have accepted the offer. I asked this question last week to Governor Christie, who is on the podcast. Turkey is where Hamas financiers live. Qatar is where their political leadership lives? Is Turkey an ally of the United States? Is Qatar an ally of the United States,

given who they fund and what they're doing in the region? Well, I'd enlarge the question. You know, we have designated a number of groups as foreign terrorist organizations. And by the way, the Biden administration took the Houthi rebels in Yemen off the list of foreign terrorist organizations. They may want to think about putting it back on now. But I remember what George W. Bush said after 9-11 faced with the threat of terrorism. He said, you're either with us or against us.

And I think for everybody, we ought to be saying, look, we are stronger if we have a united front with you, but we need you to help us against the terrorist threat that we face. We don't make these designations lately. And I think for the security of Americans, the way to make these designations more effective is to get other countries to work with us. And if they're harboring terrorists, then we ought to find ways to persuade them. It's not really in their interest to continue doing so. During your trip to the region, how do the leaders that you talk to, presumably in the Arab world, within Israel, view the United States? Do they fear the United States or do they feel us as absent in any way? Well, I think in the Arab world, they think the United States is once again turned feckless. They saw the Biden administration campaign, the Biden campaign in 2020, denouncing Saudi Arabia as a pariah state for the Khashoggi murder, seeing the efforts to make. climate change in issue essentially saying they were going to put the Gulf Arab states out of business because they produced those horrible hydrocarbons. And then this absolutely obsessive desire to get back into the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which the Arab states, like Israel, view as a direct, indeed almost existential threat to them. Now, the Biden administration

has failed at getting back into the 2015 nuclear deal. Thank God. They've, pulled back from criticizing the crown prince of Saudi Arabia because they want lower oil prices to reduce gasoline prices at the pump in this country. You know, they have recognized generally that the green goals they have are a lot harder to achieve than they thought. But by and large, given that the Gulf Arabs can't move anywhere, they're hedging their bets. And all of this is to America's detriment because they're hedging their bets with China. They're hedging their bets with Iran. They're hedging their bets with Russia. The closest ally for the Gulf Arab states, the one that sees the world strategically, most similar to them today, is Israel, not the United

States. And that is, I think, very harmful to American national interest. You know Benjamin Netanyahu. I think you probably have known him for years, maybe decades. Have you talked to him since the war began? I have not spoken with him. I think he's obviously under enormous pressure. He was under pressure politically before the October 7th attacks. And, you know, the divisions within Israel have healed to a certain extent because of the unity that was inspired by the atrocities committed. But antipathy to Netanyahu runs high. And if you look at historical parallels, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, almost a duplicate in terms of failed intelligence on the Israeli side. And at the end of it, the ultimately late gold in my ears, government was removed from power. So Netanyahu is in a difficult political

position, but I don't know of anybody in Israeli political lives that I met with over the years that has understood the Iranian threat better than Netanyahu. Well, I was going to mention and ask you, because he does seem not to, even before the war, but especially now, a lot of people that I think you may even admire on the right in Israel, not left-wing activists seem to have lost confidence in him. Do you have confidence in him at this point? Well, I do. I think he keeps, his trouble is that he's got under enormous pressure domestically in Israel, and he's under, I think, crushing pressure from the White House in ways that effectively prevent him from achieving the goal that I think the United Israeli government wants, which is

the elimination of Hamas. This terrorist veto is very insidious because it comes cloaked in humanitarian language. But it's just a way of saying, your self-defense, yeah, absolutely you have a right to it, but only up to a point, which we would not accept in the United States. If somebody had said, well, you know, you don't really have to prosecute this war against Germany all the way into destroying their government. You don't really need to consider the use of atomic weapons against Japan. When you're attacked, you have a right not just to respond proportionally, you have a right to eliminate the threat. And I think anybody who says Israel has got to stop short of that is denying

them the right to self-defense. People are not quite willing to say that because they know how consequential it is. But they find ways to make statements about Israel's policies that eliminate the right to eliminate Hamas. I want to move in a second to a 2024 politics. But just to conclude this chapter of the discussion. I was shocked on October 7th that something like this could happen in Israel, having been to that border. You were national security viruses in the United States, so you understand intelligence as well as anybody. How does something like that happen? Were you shocked that this could occur in Israel? Well, I was shocked. I think they were shocked, too. Intelligence failure can occur in a lot of different ways. And there's always somebody after the fact who says,

I knew all along. Now, in this case, it may have been much clear. And I think there has to be a full investigation. But from what I can detect what's publicly available, it's not clear to me that the disagreement about the intelligence that tended to corroborate the possibility of this attack, that that debate ever got outside the intelligence community in Israel. In other words, the idea that somehow Netanyahu or his cabinet are responsible, I think remains unproven at this point. We'll see. We have to know what the prime minister knew and when he knew it, but right now it looks like an intelligence failure. The explanation of American intelligence agencies for why they didn't see it is, well, you know, we rely on the Israelis. And that's fine,

and there ought to be intelligence cooperation. But what this ought to say to Americans, again, subject to after-action review, is that we need more robust American intelligence. I think it's important to rely on partners and you consider sharing intelligence carefully. But if we're going to make mistakes, I'd rather they were American mistakes. And I think we were blindsided here, and although Israel has paid the highest price for that, the risk of the United States is high, too. We need not only a substantial increase in our military budget, we need a substantial increase in intelligence and particularly human intelligence collection. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how

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And when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. 2024 politics, Mr. Ambassador, many reports from the New York Times and the Washington Post that it seems like Donald Trump's number one goal, if he's elected president again, is something of a revenge tour. He himself says things like this.

the trail. You worked for him, obviously, no longer on good terms with him. Should we take what these reports say seriously? Should we take what he is saying on the trail seriously? I think very much we should. I think it will be a retribution presidency. I think you should listen to what Trump says. You know, there was that old, not old, but the saying in 2016, take him seriously, but not literally, I think you've got to take him seriously and literally. And I just say I've had the personal experience of the roadshow for the retribution presidency when he went after me for publishing my book during the 2020 campaign using the Justice Department. Notwithstanding the fact the book had been fully cleared through the regular channels in the classification pre-publication review, he just ignored it and the Justice Department ignored it. So in a justice department filled with Trump yes men, I think it's going to be very dangerous.

And it's one of the reasons I think that his a second Trump term would be very damaging to the country. You kind of know the levers of power and what presidents can do, what they can't do without support. If you're General Millie, if you're Bill Barr, if you're Ambassador John Bolton, what could Donald Trump do if he wanted to harass or haranguing? people that he disliked. Well, if you have a president who is utterly unconstrained by constitutional norms, legal requirements, ethical considerations, I'm basically describing Donald Trump, then you have to see what kinds of advisors he has around him. And what they do when he finally says, I've listened to all the arguments, I want you to go indict Mark Millie for treason for calling the Chinese government during the last days of his first administration. Now, his political appointees

may all say yes all the time, although I suppose even some of them will say no and have to resign. And then when you get into the career ranks at the Department of Justice, you're an uncharted territory, but I think it's possible you could have successive waves of resignations within the Justice Department. You could have a similar pattern within the Department of Defense if he tried to use the military for purposes that they considered illegal, as they were being given illegal orders. We've never seen really anything like this before, really not even in the Nixon administration, which was probably the worst in contemporary history. And I think it's one reason why Trump second term would be a constitutional crisis one day after the other.

There was one report that what the part of the plan is. I don't know if it came from Trump himself or some of the functionaries that are developing day one agenda, that he will tell appointees that he'll pardon them if they wonder if it's an illegal order that he is giving them. Are you allowed to, even as president, tell people under you, just go do this potential crime and I'll pardon you? Well, I will find out. And the pardon power is not constrained by anything in the Constitution.

I think that's why within the executive breadth, I think it will be in constant turmoil, and it simply won't be efficient in tearing out what he wants to do. I'm not minimizing this. I'm just saying, I think there's a possibility the people he's surrounded with are third and fourth raiders, essentially, and they may think they have a way through this, but he could be in serious internal difficulty quickly. And then I think we have to count on the separation of powers, the structural constitutionalism that the framers wrote into the into the Constitution to constrain him on other fronts. It's going to be a long four years if he gets back in. I don't think he's a threat to democracy the way some people say. I don't

think you should overestimate the danger any more than you should underestimate the danger because if you don't get it right, you're going to come up with the wrong solutions. But it's going to be bad for the country because, as was increasingly clear in his first four years, to Donald Trump, it's all about Donald Trump. It's not about America. He doesn't care about the greater good for the country. He cares about the greater good for Donald Trump. Speaking of not overestimating the danger, what's the positive outlook of a Trump presidency? Can you paint a picture that this would be the best outcome you could imagine if he was reelected? Well, you know, what he is thought to have done correctly in his first term from, I'll say, a conservative point of view, was things like try to cut taxes, cut regulation, appoint the right kinds of judges and justices to the Supreme Court. Nothing about that is magical. That's what any Republican who sought the Republican nomination in 2016 or seeks it this year would try to do. But if he at least sticks to try to do what is based once on those scores, then you would say that's positive. But I have a warning here for everybody because Trump can't get a third term and he will therefore

be unconstrained by electoral political concerns. And one of the few things that we could use in the first term to keep him in touch with reality was to argue that even if something were atrocious on policy grounds, and that didn't convince him, we could convince him it was bad for him on political grounds. I think that argument's very different in the second Trump term, and people who think he's going to be great from a conservative point of view, maybe missing the point. take infrastructure spending, deficit spending. He said he won't do anything about Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, the entitlement programs. Trump loves nothing better than spending

other people's money. And as president, he has access to an awful lot of. There have been names floated for his national security team. People are saying someone who used to work for you, Rick Rennell for Secretary of State, Cash Patel for the CIA, John Ratcliffe for the Secretary of Defense. When you see that national security team, what are the thought that comes to your mind? Is that some team that you would feel secure with or concerned about? Well, I would be concerned for anybody who would work in a second Trump term, given what he has said about the Constitution. And they must know going in, or at least we'll have to tell them if Trump wins,

that the only way they're going to keep the jobs they're going into in a second Trump term is to say yes every time Trump asked for something. I think some people will go in regardless of that. But I think it's, I think, you know, at the end of his administration, he was down to about the third or fourth team. That's where he's going to start on January 20, 2020, 25, and then it'll go downhill from there. It's going to, look, it's going to be a bad period for the country. Just curious, kind of the personal politics here. I mean, Rick Rinell used to be an ally of yours.

He worked for you as spokesman of the U.N. Do you talk to him anymore, or as there's a total separation, Team Trump versus not Team Trump? Yeah, I can't remember the last time I spoke to. I mean, sometime during my time at the White House. And that's part of the aberrational effect that Trump has, is that it's not what's your idea, what's your philosophy. It's are you a Trumper or are you not? You have not yet endorsed in the GOP primary in 2024.

It may not matter. I mean, Donald Trump is so far ahead at this point. But there are still candidates running. I assume of the candidates running, Vivek is unlikely to get your endorsement. But you have Christy, Haley, and DeSantis. They all seem to be maybe candidates for your endorsement. You have an opportunity here. Would you like to take the opportunity to choose one of them?

Well, no, I haven't endorsed anybody. I didn't in 2016 either because the PAC that I run really focuses on the House and the Senate. And I have supporters for that effort to get Reaganite foreign policy candidates elected in the House and the Senate. But even I have people who support Trump who nonetheless support me. I would say we made another terrible mistake in 2024 in this campaign cycle, as we did in 2016. The way to defeat Trump was to demonstrate Trump's not fit for the presidency, with the exception of Chris Christie and Aza Hutchison, who's still in the race. The other candidates have not criticized Trump adequately. And I think it's a huge mistake.

It's one reason he's at the place in the polls that he is. You've painted a fairly bleak picture of what Donald Trump says. term would look like. I know last time around you said you just weren't going to vote if the options were Biden and Trump. Is that still your position or considering the bleak picture and perhaps the personal threat to you from Donald Trump if he is reelected? Would you consider voting for Joe Biden in 2024? Now, I live in Maryland, so I wrote in the name of a conservative Republican to be president in 2020, and I suspect that's what I'll do again in 24. If you were in a swing state, would it be different? You know, I don't know. I think in 2016,

I bought the argument that it's the lesser of two evils. And since Hillary Clinton and her husband were a year ahead of me in law school, and I'd like to say I'd been burdened with the Clintons a lot longer than the rest of the country, I did vote for Trump. But after seeing him up close for 17 months, there's no way I could vote for him again. But I don't think Biden is the answer. I mean, if Biden is the answer, we're asking the wrong question. Just a few questions to close. You for many, many years, decades were almost the face of foreign policy, certainly during the Obama years at Fox News, you were the face of the whatever, the anti-abama foreign policy was. Has life changed in the sense of your influence within the

Republican Party since leaving Trump? Is Trump just so dominant that he can excise anybody who's disagreed with him to the periphery of the Republican Party? Well, I don't worry about it because Trump doesn't have a philosophy and he doesn't do policy. And I think the struggle has to be to continue to argue for the correct policies. And I think most Republicans in Congress still adhere to a pretty Reaganite approach to the world. I think the problem is that a lot of members are intimidated by Trump, but not because he pursues a different policy, just because he basically threatens to put them out of their job if they disagree with him. So the Trump aberration, when it ends, I think is an opportunity to get the party back on an

even keel. You were on 60 Minutes recently talking about the threat to your life from Iran. I wonder on just a broader level, I mean, you had your graduated Yale law. You could be a partner at some law firm not having a threat from Iran, not having it have secret service protection. Do you ever wonder whether that would be the easier, better path to take than having to have secret service now to protect your life? Well, you know, you make your choices and you move on. I don't look back.

I don't regret it. I try to do what was right for the country. I'm sure I made my share of mistakes. But I think that's the objective that you should have. have when you go into public service. It's not about personal positions. And, you know, in the Donald Trump mode, it's not about Donald Trump. It's not about John Bolton. It's doing the right thing for the country. And finally, it's hard to probably envision it right now, considering where the 24th policies are looking like. But can you envision or do you imagine there's possibly another act for John Bolton

in government service? Well, I don't think it's going to come after the 2024 election. That's for sure. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for joining the dispatch podcast. Glad to be with you. Thank you.