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US POLITICS 60 Minutes Australia talks with John Bolton, John Bolton, whom Trump described as 'a very dumb guy', is worried about Taiwan \| 60 Minutes PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOIfN26-UPY Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
John Bolton, whom Trump described as 'a very dumb guy', is worried about Taiwan \| 60 Minutes 60 Minutes Australia May 4, 2025 6.19M subscribers ... 953,960 views ... 16K likes Donald Trump's longest serving National Security adviser John Bolton shares his thoughts on the current White House, including the tariffs war, the Russia-China axis and the first 100 days of Trump's second coming. Trump World: The Art of Upheaval (2025) ► Watch: • Mastermind or madman? How Donald Trump is ... ► Subscribe: http://9Soci.al/chmP50wA97J ► WATCH Full Episodes on 9NOW: https://9now.app.link/uNP4qBkmN6 MORE VIDEOS like this one ► • Expert analysis of what Donald Trump's sec... ► • Are Elon Musk’s days in the White House nu... ► • What does Donald Trump’s election win mean... FOLLOW 60 Minutes Australia ► Instagram: / 60minutes9 ► TikTok: / 60minutes9 ► Facebook: / 60minutes9 ABOUT 60 Minutes Australia 60 Minutes Australia have been telling the world’s greatest stories for over 40 years. Reporters Tara Brown, Amelia Adams, Adam Hegarty, Dimity Clancey and Nick McKenzie look past the headlines to show the bigger picture. Watch the latest from 60 Minutes Australia every Sunday on Channel 9 and 9Now. Transcript 0:00 John Bolton i'm John Bolton i was Donald Trump's longest serving national security adviser ambassador Bolton you served as Donald Trump's national security adviser for 17 months what was Donald Trump like to work for as president well he was very disorganized in his management style uh I said in my book it was like working inside a pinball machine uh unlike other presidents like George HW Bush who were comfortable with an orderly decision-making process particularly on national security matters uh Trump often listened to the last person in the room and uh cabinet members knew that and it made it very hard to get things done uh in an organized fashion and to do long range strategic planning which uh which we were rarely successful at did you get a sense he listened to advice or took advice i think he listened sometimes in the 2016 campaign Rudy Giuliani was asked by a reporter 'Does Donald Trump ever listen to you?' And Giuliani paused 1:00 and said 'Yeah about 20% of the time.' And how often would he listen to you i thought 20% was a pretty good batting average when we see what has happened in the last 6 months or so the return of Donald Trump to the White House is this one of the biggest second chances in American political history uh it's certainly almost unprecedented Grover Cleveland being the only other uh president who served two terms uh interrupted by another uh and I think that given that Trump spent four years at Mara Lago stewing about his grievances uh and his enemies uh he and his aids spent four years planning what they would do when they came back how much of the way he's running the US government now is retribution i think retribution uh is a major element of uh what Trump wants out of a second term he's a man who feels endlessly agrieved uh by everybody uh some some grievances are large some are 2:06 small uh he complained for example about a picture uh of a painting of him that was hung by the governor of Colorado in a gallery of American presidents in Denver now I don't know who has time to go through their pictures and portraits around the world uh but Donald Trump does was there a sense then first time round he was underprepared for the job Trump was unprepared and so knew what to do with the second coming well he was totally unprepared for the first job on election day i remember speaking to Trump campaign adviserss who were sure they were going to lose uh I think most outside observers would say he completely wasted the pre-election transition work the actual transition itself accomplished little and for his first six months in office neither he nor most of the people around him who had never been in government before uh really knew how to proceed so much of the first term was 3:05 spent uh learning just sort of where the basics uh were to take place uh by the end of that time that process was probably well understood but that's when co hit so are we seeing now a more A more polished Trump polished more refined Donald Trump or a Donald Trump more prepared to carry out what he wanted to do the first time around i I wouldn't say a more polished Donald Trump i'd say the same Donald Trump who this time is surrounded by yes men and yes women uh who are prepared to agree to what he wants to do without saying things like have you considered this information have you looked at these alternatives uh do you understand these potential consequences a lot of Trump's supporters say that in the first term he was constrained by people who didn't want to let him do what he wanted to do that's not true uh he was advised by people uh who wanted him to know that he could make better informed decisions 4:01 if he chose and he just just didn't choose to often a 100 days is the most First 100 days common measurement for a president's term in office measure the first 100 days as to how they're going to go how would you sum up Donald Trump's first few months as second term president well I think there's been a lot of uh uh sound and fury uh looking back from four years uh after uh the first 100 days it'll be interesting to see how of it how much of it actually carried into effect uh how much really was uh for the media how much was for the base and how much really changed obviously at this point we can't tell but I think uh particularly given the scrutiny of the courts and the press of reality in national security affairs uh it may turn out that a lot of what happened in the first 100 days doesn't last what has the United States lost i think uh the coherence of the NATO alliance the 5:00 stability of uh multiple other bilateral alliances the belief that the US was trusted even when people disagreed with it uh this is not measurable in dollars and cents terms which is really uh all that Trump understands when he understands anything uh and so the the long-term impact which can only be negative really can't be measured at this point nor can we see what mitigating efforts people may be able to make in the next four years or what needs to be done at the end of Trump's term to repair the damage under the Biden administration there was full-blown support for Ukraine and its Ukraine war against Russia under President Trump there was a pause in the aid that went to Ukraine and that extraordinary scene in the White House Oval Office when you saw that exchange between President Trump Vice President Vance and Ukraine's President Zilinski what was your reaction well it was a disaster in the first 100 days trump has burned through 6:04 decades of goodwill trust and reliance that America has built up over the years he doesn't understand the stability that the alliance structure led by the United States created for the world we've lost a lot just in the first 100 days i think that scene alone played out on live television had more impact harmful to the NATO alliance than almost any uh other single act uh since NATO was originally formed you know Biden supported Ukraine but ineffectively uh weapon system debates were dragged out over a long period of time should we provide attackum should we provide Abrams tanks should we provide F-16s uh there was never a strategic uh distribution of the aid that might have allowed the Ukrainians to push the Russians out of Ukraine uh so now the the the situation is not nearly what it might have been not withstanding uh NATO unity uh even so Trump effectively 7:03 reversed the American position uh he is now more in support of the Russian position than uh support for Ukraine he's given Russia enormous concessions he's agreed even before negotiations really begin on the substance that uh there will not be a full return of Ukrainian territory and territory sovereignty uh which was the NATO position before he took office there will be no Ukrainian membership in NATO which has been the US position since 2008 there will be no NATO security guarantees there will be no US security guarantees the only problem the Kremlin has with any of that is they didn't ask for enough and had they asked for it they might have gotten it so the United States has swapped sides basically Trump has done a 180 uh to move the US position to be closely aligned with the Kremlin trump thinks Putin is his friend uh and he thinks Trump is an easy mark that he can use his KGB skills against 8:02 and which he has in the first 100 days used to great advantage particularly with respect to the Ukraine many of Trump's closest adviserss like Steve Witcov another Manhattan real estate dealer with no international experience uh has voiced Russian propaganda and communicated it directly to Trump who has in turn talked about it when you were advising then President Trump back Russias objectives in 2018 and 2019 Russia was already taking some issues with Ukraine and we'd seen the annexation of Crimea were you concerned President Putin could carry out an allout war on Ukraine and did you advise the president of your concerns i think we were always worried about Russia's objectives because of what Vladimir Putin and other Russians had been saying since 2005 when speech to the state doom of Vladimir Putin said the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th 9:00 century and in subsequent statements uh in summary fashion basically said he wanted to recreate the Russian Empire uh Trump did some things during his first year plus in office uh like allowing Tomahawk cruise missiles to be delivered to Ukraine he did it because Barack Obama had refused to do it and so in Trump's mind he reversed uh the Obama policy but we didn't carry through with what we should have been doing which was sending much more equipment doing much more training for Ukraine and really responding more effectively to the Russian actions in 2014 the first invasion that the West did not respond too effectively why do you think Donald Trump has aligned the United States br> Trumps relationship with Putin position more with Moscow than with Keefe trump thinks that international relations are basically uh equivalent to the personal relationships between the heads of state of the countries involved so if the US and Russia uh we find 10:02 Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin having good personal relations then the two countries have good relations is he right no uh Trump uh sees this as purely personal he doesn't really understand much about the background i think Putin who is one of the coldest blooded uh leaders I've ever met in international affairs sees the world through the prism of Russian national interest so in the first 100 days of his second term has Donald Trump been played by Vladimir Putin absolutely just to give an example Donald Trump said during the 2024 campaign on many occasions the Ukraine war never would have taken place had he been president a statement that's neither provable nor disprovable but shows how Trump thinks he's the center of attention of almost everything uh shortly after the inauguration as I think the beginning of the manipulation Vladimir Putin said he agreed with Trump that if Trump had been president there would have been no Ukraine war then he released Mark Foley a long-held American 11:05 hostage president Luca Shank of Bellar Roose released another American hostage and then there were other things this showed Putin uh appealing to Trump using Trump's uh self-centered nature to get him to remember what a good friend Vladimir Putin had been so what is Donald Trump doing to America's place in the world order then well I think we are steadily weakening America's position through these Trump policies he doesn't see that but I believe in Beijing where they're watching the Ukraine play out very carefully uh the Chinese leadership sees Taiwan being even more vulnerable given Trump's actions given you say Trumps Sharpie pen President Trump did a 180 on the US position on Ukraine do you hold concerns that China could just take Taiwan without a US response well I'm very worried for Taiwan at the moment and 12:00 this goes back to Trump in his first term uh he used to take his famous Sharpie pen from time to time and he'd hold it up and he'd point to the tip and he'd say 'See that that's Taiwan.' And then he'd point to the vast resolute desk that he sat behind and say 'That's China.' That that showed what his opinion was of the relative importance to the US of Taiwan and China is he Trumps main objective paying enough attention at the moment to the national security the international security challenge that China poses uh I don't think he he is I think what he really wants is the biggest trade deal in history between the US and China uh and despite the tariffs that have been uh put on in the first 100 days already between the US and China I think that remains Trump's main objective when it comes to China five Chinas warrior wolf behavior years ago almost five years ago an official at the Chinese embassy in Australia handed me a list that became 13:00 known as the 14 grievances grievances that concerned freedom of expression freedom of MPs to speak freely conditions that the Chinese embassy said at the time they wanted changed in order to secure a better relationship with Australia at the time Donald Trump's then White House National Security Council criticized the list and said this was essentially China's warrior wolf behavior in your view is that behavior still going on is there a need for the United States to stand up to China in the Indoacific the China Russia axis which is not perfected yet but is well along to being created uh really is a global threat ukraine's not a Russia war it's a Russia China war given the assistance that China's provided Russia laundering its sanctioned financial assets through China's system into the world buying more oil and gas from Russia at a time when it was under western sanctions and I think China will will expect the same from Russia so we either face up to this uh increasing 14:02 effort by China to achieve hegemony first along its Indo-Pacific periphery and then I think more broadly uh or we're going to be under even greater threat as the century goes on just back Can Putin be trusted on Russia Donald Trump has said that essentially he trusts what Vladimir Putin is telling him at the moment about sticking to the terms of a ceasefire with Ukraine can Vladimir Putin be trusted to adhere to a ceasefire no certainly not based on his own words based on the fact that if he really wants to recreate the Russian Empire he has to have Ukraine and that's not just his view that's the view of many many Russians people shouldn't underestimate the level of support that Putin has certainly the absence of any political opposition ronald Reagan used to say 'Trust but verify.' I think in the case of the current Russian government I'd say don't trust and don't be really sure that even verification will help you donald Trump keeps praising Ronald Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan Reagan almost comparing himself with the former president you've worked under both administrations are they comparable 15:07 this isn't even close this is Donald Trump master marketer taking a brand he knows is valuable in American politics and using labels like peace through strength that he does not understand to try and wrap himself in the Reagan brand uh I don't think he'll be successful uh but if he is it'll be fraud when it comes to a national security perspective National security concerns is it a security risk to have an unelected billionaire as a key member of cabinet i think that a lot of people are concerned that the that uh a lot of these private citizens that have come in to help Trump don't have a clue what security concerns are uh and we've seen uh evidence that even Trump's senior officials uh in the case of Yemen don't seem to know what classification means so I think it's a general problem i I think Trump himself doesn't understand 16:03 it he once tweeted out a very sensitive overhead picture of a launch failure uh on uh in in Iran uh a picture that uh that opposing intelligence agencies couldn't have paid enough money to steal uh and I think that kind of lacks attitude unfortunately seems to permeate the early days of a second Trump term just out of interest what have you made of the relationship between Donald Trump Trump and Elon Musk and Elon Musk well I think uh as some members of Trump's team have said Musk serves as a heat shield for Trump and his efforts to disrupt the bureaucracy and reduce its size in what way well to the extent there's been criticism and there's been a little bit by Republicans and a lot but ineffectively by Democrats uh it's on uh somebody other than Donald Trump and Trump has shown an uncanny ability over the years to use people and then ditch them when they become uh too 17:01 much too problematic from his point of view so I think he's happy to have Musk out there uh although he's also put some constraints on him when the episode of Musk apparently about to receive a briefing from the Pentagon on our China war plans that didn't happen according to the administration and Trump himself said publicly it shouldn't happen uh and that Musk might have conflicts of interest dealing with China questions is he setting him up to be a full guy i think he's getting ready to throw him overboard that's that's how Trump behaves with almost everybody except close family members is that how he behaved with you well I resigned before he could do it but he certainly fired other people that had don't serve his purpose any longer look a president's entitled to whomever he wants on his staff but you'd think that uh that things like uh uh loyalty and service would count and they don't accept in terms of personal feely to Donald Trump loyalty and service to the country aren't on his radar screen ambassador 18:04 Why the American people chose Trump Bolton President Trump singled you out recently he described you as somebody he said was a very dumb guy and said quote 'I used him well.' Your response to that yeah I wonder who hired that guy this is a man who has no limit to how many grievances that he has why do you think the American people decided to go down the path of having him as president of the United States again well I think that they forgot a lot of what happened in Trump's term particularly January the 6th i think there was great dissatisfaction with Biden's performance on the economy and I think the anti-woke feeling in the country uh which probably takes up 80% of the people contributed as well but I don't think the American people voted for a lot of what has happened in the first 100 days uh I think the 2024 election proves that America is still a centerright country 19:00 uh really nothing more and nothing left is the MAGA movement under Donald Trump now ironed into American society he MAGA movement keeps making jokes about a third term well he's not going to get a third term uh and and I think that's clear to everybody other than some of his supporters i think Trump is an aberration i think he has been an aberration i don't think being elected to a second term disproves that because Trump has no philosophy has no grand strategy doesn't even do policy as most of us understand that term his influence and his legacy will be minimal uh and I think in 2028 you're going to have a wideopen uh fight for the Republican nomination i don't think JD Vance although vice president is inevitable by any stretch of the imagination and I think the Democrats have their own problem their party is perhaps even more split than the Republican party is and uh and no clear direction at this point why do you think it's not inevitable JD Vance gets the nomination well if if the 20:05 Is JD Vance inevitable economy turns sour for example as a result of the Trump tariffs or other exogenous events uh that that could be very damaging to Trump personally his approval ratings could fall dramatically and anybody associated closely with the administration would struggle to establish a separate identity i think that's one very important reason Kla Harris lost in 2024 she was tied inextricably to Joe Biden america has had political dynasties the Clintons the Is Trump the MAGA king Kennedys if Donald Trump is the MAGA king is Donald Trump Jr the crown prince well there was only one Kennedy president uh you know there were two Bush presidents that's true but uh only one Clinton president i I don't think you can necessarily pass the Trump mantle on to anyone else why because he has no coherent philosophy and ultimately to lead a movement uh you have to have some underlying uh 21:06 underlying force that keeps people together what what allowed Trump to establish a small majority a small popular majority and an electoral college majority that was smaller than his victory in 2016 uh were a series of grievances and uh many of those grievances are internally inconsistent i think the future for the Republican party really is a return to Reaganite principles obviously in a different era 50 years later but the principles remain valid trump has no principles when you look at some of the international actions he's spoken about taking control Trump has no principles of Canada as a 51st state taking Greenland should the world be listening to him on is he being serious was somebody once observed to me astutely you know the way to handle Trump is like on a television set just turn the volume off and don't listen to what he's saying 22:04 um that that works in part but what sometimes when Trump speaks he's being very serious in the case of invading Canada it's not going to happen case of invading Greenland it's not going to happen case of invading Panama it's not going to happen i don't know where he got these ideas of using military force but uh it won't happen and it's very detrimental to America because many of the things Trump is saying about let's say Canada uh or what Putin is saying about Ukraine or China saying about Taiwan so what's his strategy then behind tariffs not just on Canada and Trump likes tariffs Mexico but countries around the world including Australia is this a serious economic policy uh it's not a strategy that's for sure he likes tariffs he believes in most cases and we'll see if that's challenged in court he doesn't need additional legislative authority and it reflects the the the Trump decision-making style 25% tariffs on 23:02 Canada and Mexico until a few days later when it's postponed 10% tariffs on China until a few weeks later when it's 20% reciprocal tariffs on the whole whole world until a few weeks later when it's down to maybe 15 countries and certain selected products and that's one reason why the tariffs may cause economic distress in the US and around the world not simply because of the tariffs themselves which are a bad enough idea but because of the uncertainty which is introduced into the economic system something business simply can't abide it wants certainty whatever the good news is or the bad news is it wants certainty there is no certainty inside Trump's brain is there any economic method to what people are perceiving as madness The art of the deal around tariffs well it's the behavior of somebody who doesn't really understand the stakes of what what he's doing it's on it's off it's on in part it's off in part that's how he thinks uh that's not 24:02 a strategy that's incoherent so if it's about the art of the deal what's the deal uh the the deal is keeping Trump at the center of the world stage and that's who you believe he is and it works too the the television stations in America are filled with Donald Trump up one day down the next but but always with something to say he's a reality TV president well I think the best example of that in action is the 50inute discussion between Trump and Vance and Zalinsky on February the 28th um you know there were serious issues to discuss between Ukraine and the Trump administration what's the best place to discuss them behind closed doors and instead they played out disastrously on international television uh what could be better for Trump in fact it said as he walked Zalinsky out of the office before he kicked him out of the White House without lunch that'll make for great TV what does the next few years 25:04 The absence of coherent strategy the 1360 odd days of Donald Trump's presidency look like i think it looks like more of the same um I if if you believe and understand that there's no philosophy behind this that it's all about Donald Trump and what benefits him uh then you can see that the absence of coherent strategy uh is baked in it it was said to us in the first term that when Trump ran his Trump organization in New York he never had a daily schedule he'd come in every day and say 'Well let's see what happens today.' Now maybe that's good for success in New York real estate i can't say it's not the way to run the US government The threat from Iran in the flurry of executive orders that came in on the night of January 20 one of the very first centered in part on you removing your security detail at a time when Iran had been making threats 26:02 on your life when you heard that what was your response well I was surprised but not entirely do you worry about it well I do i've made separate arrangements obviously it's not the Secret Service but uh I do believe that the threat is real uh and so I have to do what I can and he then did it to others like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper former chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Millie u Trump knows very well we are threatened by Iran exactly as he is right before the election the FBI arrested a Pakistani national operating for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard trying to hire a hitman against Trump himself this is a very real threat this is not internet chatter uh and it's obviously personal to those of us whose protection was was withdrawn but it's a national problem because it's a terrible signal to the likes of Iran and other American adversaries and to anybody working for Donald Trump today how did 27:04 Secretary of State Marco Rubio here uh feel when he heard that Trump had removed his predecessor's diplomatic security bureau protection what does that do to Marco Rubio's willingness to go out on a limb for Donald Trump the threat against your life remains he's removed your security detail has this Has Trump put your life at risk president put your life more at risk than it was before yeah yes I think he has but in fact he was asked by a reporter uh after the removal of Dr fouch's security uh detail not because of Iran but for other reasons reporter said well what if something happens to Bolton or Fouchy would you consider yourself responsible and Trump said no so his decision has made you more fearful for your own life well I don't dwell on it because if I did it would inhibit my ability to write analyses of the mistakes Trump is making but it shows how in Trump's world everything 28:04 centers around him as I say I I I can't ignore the personal stake I have in this but this is a real national security mistake for the United States going forward so when you criticize him openly Is it personal or political analysis as you do is it personal or is there political analysis behind this too well I I criticized him before he withdrew the Secret Service uh protection i don't think I've increased the volume of criticism it's a it's a full-time job i believe it's important notwithstanding that Trump will be in office for another almost four years that people who do national security uh continue to write about what they think the correct policies are because there will be a new president Republican or Democrat we don't know but but trying to ensure American national security is not something that changes just because Trump is president or one day will leave we have to look forward at the long-term issues that affect national security for 29:05 the US and for its allies you talk about allies one of the agreements that he that was struck up between the United Will Trump stick to the Orcus alliance States the United Kingdom and Australia was the Orcus arrangement for the United States to provide Australia with nuclearpowered submarines he was asked in his first month or so in office about it and said 'What does that mean?' Do you think Donald Trump will stick to the Orcus alliance i would be worried that he won't uh be because he's not thinking very uh coherently about how to deal with the China threat because the AUS capability uh adding to Australia's naval assets bringing the British back more heavily into a Pacific uh area of concern uh and and helping extend uh the capabilities of one of America's most important allies in the region is part of dealing with the threat of China and 30:01 not to understand how big a program that is how important it is what a template it might provide for dealing with other countries in the region Japan South Korea uh India at some point shows a total lack of awareness of what's at stake in the Indo-Pacific is China the biggest national security challenge that Is China the biggest national security challenge President Donald Trump should have in this term i I think China remains the biggest threat to the west as a whole uh in the 21st century the link between China and Russia shows it's a global threat along with their outr rididers like North Korea Iran Bellarus Venezuela Cuba uh this is this is what uh a real national security for strategy for the United States for the next four years should focus on whether there's any work done on that uh remains to be seen Does that surprise you ambassador Bolton we've seen when it comes to China making threats around the world its navy circumnavigating 31:01 Australia and so far no response from the American president an ally of Australia does that surprise you well it's typical of Donald Trump that he doesn't think about problems in long-term perspective uh I think to be a strong American president in this very dangerous century he has to show the capability to respond to the threats that we have in common uh and uh if he fails to he will be regarded on that score alone as a huge failure we've seen Whats his idea not just in the national security space when it's talking with allies and bringing them to the White House having them on his turf but in a vast array of um domestic policy as well that Donald Trump has once again employed the Steve Bannon flood the zone mentality what's his idea do you believe behind putting so much out there so often well I think part of it is making sure he stays uh in the public eye and uh there there's some question how much 32:04 longer this can go on uh the executive orders that he signs with great fanfare so many nights of the week are getting less and less substantive uh you know executive orders primarily go to implementing statutes that Congress passed and ordering the executive branch uh Trump is now putting in executive order format the kinds of instructions that earlier presidents did over the telephone or did by way of a short memo or by way of something the national security adviser might send out as a cabinet memo so it's not that he's doing more at this point he's just doing more so he can hold it up with a famous Donald Trump patented signature on it more branding of everything being Donald Trump that's really what we're down to now I think so it doesn't need a black pen and a whole bunch of TV cameras no but it's part of Donald Trump's style is that if he could be on TV 16 hours a day I think he'd be delighted they could put 33:01 a closed circuit TV camera in the Oval Office and he could perform uh every minute he was there that obviously is is an exaggeration but he likes writings and that would that right well I'm afraid some of the cable news networks would carry that closed circuit TV camera watching him walk around and and and talking to his staff he he knows that's beyond the limit but but look at what he's done with uh expanding a television already it used to be at cabinet meetings cabinet would be in uh in in brought into the cabinet room TV cameras would come in to take pictures and they'd be ushered out now Trump's perfectly happy to have cabinet meetings uh in full view of the cameras because what do they do they showcase Donald Trump he's on several occasions gone around the room to cabinet members to each of them and said 'What do you think of being in the Trump administration?' And they they'd shower him with praise it was all fairly embarrassing for everybody concerned except Donald Trump trump TV is back it is for four 34:03 years in November Americans in large volumes elected him as president he won Trump TV is back the popular vote that he hadn't done in the last two elections what message is that sending to him and how he's going to govern over the next four years i think Trump knows that his victory wasn't that big but uh in Donald Trump's world there are winners and losers he's obviously always a winner and then there are big winners and small winners and he wants to be a big winner if he says it often enough some people will believe it but Republican and Democratic political strategists alike know that it was a victory but it was a thin victory and looking toward the 2026 midterm elections people are wondering how much of that coalition uh will still be together when it comes to House and Senate elections which will be critical for the last two years of Trump's term how critical though because essentially right now he's governing on his own for 35:02 his own to have lasting change in the government you have to have change in the statute so even cabinet departments like the Department of Education that he's trying to take apart will still exist as long as the statutory words remain uh in the US code and a Democratic president perhaps elected in 2028 could recreate the department take the programs that have been moved elsewhere move them right back in and start it up again that's why looking at everything that's happened in the first 100 days you have to ask how long will that actually last we could go through the cost of tearing a lot of things down and then a few years later the cost of putting them all back together again the net result might look exactly the same except we will have wasted a lot of money in the process whereas a more uh precise and targeted and strategic approach might actually have resulted in permanent change a majority of Americans 36:01 A majority of Americans admire Trump admire him republicans admire him is there anything you admire about Donald Trump well you you have to acknowledge that he's still president as we say in America well if you're so smart how come you're not president and I I acknowledge that reality had you thought about running before well I I I did think about it in other years i ultimately didn't i think it's uh we're we're in a we're in a situation now where only a Donald Trump could run as a non-politician uh and he did it successfully twice is that the future of American politics then the president's going to be a non-politician somebody The future of American politics from the celebrity world from the world of entertainment well I think there's certainly too much in the Trump presidency and too much in Congress of people who don't really understand they're there to run the government they're performance artists they care about their TV ratings their social media metrics uh in Congress some of them don't even bother to go to congressional hearings to ask questions of witnesses they go to perform uh 37:04 ultimately that's a breakdown of civil society and government itself and uh if that trend doesn't change that could be very dangerous and it's not true only in the United States it's true in many of the democratic countries around the world what is the influence of Donald Trump doing in Western democracies The influence of Donald Trump around the world elon Musk and Donald Trump tried to push for a far more conservative victory in Germany that didn't happen but what is the impact of Donald Trump's presidency and his move further to the right across Western democracies i think it's very hard to say he's having an impact because I don't think he has a philosophical direction i think it's the uh the uh effort by people to try and find patterns where perhaps they don't exist uh it it's the case in Germany that the effort to affect the election probably backfired i think the effect in Canada certainly wasn't what Trump uh expected 38:01 it turns out that trying to affect the result in a friendly democracy uh often 38:07 doesn't produce the result that people might think everybody's got an opinion of politicians in other countries but opening your mouth and saying what it is may not be the smartest thing politically going back to Elon Musk and How did John Bolton react to Donald Trump Donald Trump one of the aspects that they have looked at through Doge or the Department of Government Efficiency is USAD you worked there for two years when you saw what they did to that organization how did you react i thought it was a mistake i thought certainly after four years of Biden and before that eight years of Obama not much changed during the first Trump term that there were undoubtedly a lot of things that should be done differently but I remember what we tried to do in the Reagan administration was make aid a more effective instrument of American bilateral foreign policy we didn't go as far as I wanted to go at the time uh and 39:00 I'm sure that uh that in a second Trump term a lot of changes could be made but what they did instead of reforming it uh was in the words of the famous army briefer in Vietnam uh we had to destroy that village in order to save it uh they've destroyed aid it will have to be built back because we need a bilateral foreign assistance program uh but the damage that they've done will take a long time to repair and what about America beyond 2028 clearly Americans What about America beyond 2028 voted him in so they're along for the ride for the next four years well they're along for the ride for some of it we we'll see what happens in the 26 election i'm worried that dissatisfaction with Trump may open an opportunity for the Democratic left and that the swing in 2028 uh could go to a Bernie Sanders lookalike uh in the Democratic party or even Bernie Sanders if Bernie's still around in 2028 i hope he is but I hope he doesn't get their nomination um you know the cost of a 40:05 Donald Trump presidency is not just the damage that Trump does it's the damage a Democratic successor might do so is Is American politics in a pendulum American politics right now in a pendulum are we going from right to left to right i I think it's very hard to predict because we've never had a circumstance uh of a two-term uh president separated by another term faced with a term limit at the end of the second term so there's simply no dynamic not just in recent years but in any part of the American experience that tells us what comes next nor have we ever had a president like Donald Trump could you ever again i hope not just on Is the Democrats leaderless the Democrats Ambassador Bolton right now they seem leaderless everybody is starting to put their hands up whether it's Bernie Sanders whether it's AOC alongside him or Governor Gavin Newsome talking to people he often disagrees with Steve Bannon amongst them where do 41:02 they stand now i think I think the Democrats are lost in the wilderness uh I'm sure they'll find a way out at some point if they go to the left uh that'd be very bad for the country uh we need certainly in the national security space a Democratic party that believes in a strong American foreign policy a Reaganite kind of policy there used to be a national security wing on the Democratic side but it's been invisible for a long time the trouble with Trump is his policies look a lot like leftist Democratic policies in years gone by we need a party that believes in a strong America he's modeled himself on Reagan Is Trump the right man for the job americans have backed him in in his view he is the right man for the job is he trump said during his 2016 acceptance speech at the Republican convention describing the problems the country faced 'I alone can fix it.' That should have been a signal right then that he 42:03 was the wrong man for the job uh and I think the historical verdict on Trump will be devastating why it it's rare to see one person being so destructive he's more like a vandal warlord than a constructive president and I I think that's what history will judge him on very severely so November 2028 is America still the land of the free and Is Trump an existential threat to democracy the home of the brave i I think so unquestionably i I think it's way overstated uh to say that uh that Trump is an existential threat to democracy that somehow it's like the end of the Roman Republic for one thing we haven't had a Cataline or a Pompy or a Salah to to preede Trump and it's certainly the case that Donald Trump is no Julius Caesar donald Trump is back as America's 47th president what does this period of time in America's history look like to you well you know Winston Churchill once said 'You can always count on the 43:02 Americans to do the right thing after they've tried everything else.' And I think Donald Trump represents everything else ambassador Bolton thanks very much for your time thanks for having me

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