An Inside Look At Trump's ‘Chaotic' White House

Wouldn’t have pegged John Bolton as a Hamilton fan. The title of his tell-all, too-little-too-late memoir, The Room Where It Happened, comes from the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical, but it’s the only hip, topical reference you'll find in his self-serving inside look at 17 months as Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser.

- Scott Garceau

Bolton is more apt to name-check Thucydides, Cato the Elder or Henry Kissinger than Hamilton, but wade through the long policy debates, and you’ll get a peek at one of the most tumultuous White House administrations in US history.

There are juicy bits, leaked before the book’s troubled publication (the White House sued to stop its release). According to Bolton, Trump:

• Fixated on sending a Trump-auto- graphed copy of an Elton John CD containing the song Rocket Man to Kim Jong-un. “Getting this CD to Kim remained a high priority for several months,” writes Bolton.

• Lacked basic geopolitical and historical knowledge, seeming surprised to learn that Britain had nuclear capability, suggesting that Finland was part of Russia, and at one point telling White House Chief of Staff John Kelly “it would be cool” to invade Venezuela.

• Released a statement backing Mohammad bin Salman’s denial of involvement in Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, ostensibly to distract from his daughter’s bad press over using a personal email account. “This will divert from Ivanka,” he told Bolton. “If I read the statement in person, this will take over the Ivanka thing.”

• Delivered a mortifying thumbs up to Vladimir Putin’s denial of Russian election interference on a stage in Helsinki in 2018, which totally steamed Bolton’s grill.

• Apparently approved of China using concentration camps to lock up mostly Muslim Uighurs, telling President Xi Jinping through an interpreter that he should go ahead with building the camps, “which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”