sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. for. the welcome to worlds apart of the firing of john bolton as president trump's national security adviser made as much of a splash as he's hiring in april of 2018 see that as the president's man in the beginning bolten left the white house ask you strong upon and leaving many people gassing what the national security process in the oval office comes down to these days to discuss that i'm now joined by matt bassler cells turned professor of

public policy at the university of maryland professor dessler it's a privilege for me to talk to thank you very much for your time. is a privilege to be with you thank you for inviting me now about the daycare to go you published a very influential book on the history of president's national security advisers as i was reading it it occurred to me that in this capacity john bolton was truly one of a kind if you were writing that book today with you weren't the separate chapter. i suppose we would have a separate chapter on all or all 3 are now 4 of the people of the time trump has chosen to be a national security advisor but bolton would get the most emphasis i think i think he's probably the most colorful of all dr absolutely and also the man who came in with very very strong opinions and not a lot of tolerance for other people's opinions and now in your book with it what

the valve there is called in the shadow of the oval office and personality wise john bolton the somebody who likes to take the center stage wasn't it he's repeated when cheering out of the shadows that ultimately paved his way out of the oval office i think that was part of it i think in other words he became identified with positions the president didn't support and then he publicly argued with them and try to mobilize coalitions against the president he had him to change his mind national security advisor is supposed to be a confidential aide to the president and ideally have a little rather low profile but he was anything but that i know you blamed mr bolton for essentially the institutionalizing of the work of the national security council you called him the antithesis of what a national security adviser is supposed to be but as far as i understand nobody

except the president can decide what a national security adviser is supposed to be with all due respect it's only his prerogative and not bought off of the senate or distinguished scholars like yourself am i right absolutely that this is the problem of writing about this there is developed over the last 50 plus years since john f. kennedy appointed me george bundy to this position there's developed a consensus among analysts and people who work and to go. from about what the national security advisor should and should not do and a lot of that has involves a low profile being a reliable broker between the president and other aides and in the president's office and generally making the policy process work smoothly but he and bolton has essentially been the antithesis of this plan the problem is

of course the president chooses presidents don't necessarily read our books or even if they do they don't follow our recommendations but on the other hand when the ball tonight was a point of it sound jitters around the world many thought that this white house would be the most hawkish average and we know that mr bolton did push for getting more mass killer so to say on iran i mean used to eleanor's korea god knows what other country the fact that trump was able to filter and resists he's persisted advise isn't dotted the president's credit he passed the bolton task didn't hear yeah i suppose it was i mean he recognize that both it was not was getting him in trouble and wasn't always put hearing him the support that he needed but i mean the president did choose him bolton's appointment sent tremors around washington to at

least among those who are out of government in many of those and government because he has a long track record of being very strong polemical very savvy a man who understands how to make the government work but very much polarization i mean he's been anti arms control he was for it and various times arguing for invading iran for invading north korea and cetera and this was very much not what where the president wanted to go so why he pointed to me as a bit of a mystery about trump. once described ball to as a tough cookie and i heard one russian observer of this to suggest that the reason while trump appointed here was because he liked trump in baltar and you know this reputation for no b.s. negotiation and resolute action and it looks like to me at least that even in john bolton trying got a taste of his own medicine don't you think that bolton ironically may have made

president trump more moderate than more cautious in his decision making certainly made him look more moderate and cautious and i think it's become increasingly clear that the president doesn't want or doesn't want conflict but he is for suing policies that are tend to be confrontational can do challenge others around most notably and but he doesn't want to follow through with use of military force that's fortunate in my view but it doesn't help the president's credibility because he seems to me across is trying to be tough until the until he has to fish or cut bait and then he doesn't do something that he doesn't deny. indeed recent iraq apparent attack apparently from iran or saudi oil facilities is a good example of a plausible result of the very tough hooey as the united states has been putting on the iranian economy but again the surtur state of said rainey and bombing

in saudi arabia was an act of war which is certainly words but arguably some of what the united states is doing toward iran is either an active or very close to her but i think professor death that's the real also have to keep in mind apart from the united states nobody is sure that iran is actually behind that attack i mean and no security agency be the russian frank or even saudi for that matter came out strongly in support of them american version of events now you mentioned secretary of state and i know that historically townshend's between national security advisors and secretaries of state. have been quite common and there has been speculation that john bolton and mike don't get along all that well do you think this bolton pump aoe mismatch played any role at all or was it only about

trump and his disagreements with bolton or i think it's important for the national security adviser to give the wrong with secretary of state and they're going to number of cases where they have been rivals and this was another one it's clear that bold that pump aon who was unhappy with bolton. he was presumably played a role in some sense in the dismissal bolton he can it's obviously the president's call but bolton is brace of he doesn't work as a colleague so they don't so it's a difficult he's a difficult person to deal with if you're a high level officials we government. as well as a former official a lot of experts foreign policy experts afa size the role of personality in the national security adviser position that he or she should have full confidence off of not only the president but as you said the entire cabinet that they should be

more even handed down disputatious it was i think clear from the start that john bolton was anything but even handed or fair minded for that matter and yet he lasted for 519 days longer than 2 of his predecessors how do you explain that well i think initially on a couple of issues that his way around he was supporting tough policies that the president wanted to pursue and i think also he can't keep a president whom we have already fired 2 national security advisers he's not going to be quick to fire a 3rd and so i think for a while he thought well i know john is a rougher race of guy but i can handle it i'm the president i made the decisions and he said recently in a very curious interview that you know it does terribly matter who the next your advisor is because i make all the decisions so it's a very easy job he says i don't remember who is sad that but i heard john bolton

being described as a this is a quote a key stop get down type of guy don't you think that perhaps he's propound city for being disputatious up least 50 superiors is it be they exaggerate it i don't know that incident as rated i think. i'm sure there were times in situations where bolton was more cooperative than his general reputation but i think the you know he's has a long track record and different levels of government and when he was nominated ambassador to united nations. president george w. bush he. he was sufficiently. controversial that the senate would not confirm him even though it had a majority republican majority at the time and the president had to give him an interim appointment so he has been a controversial figure one thing that used to unite bolton and trump was their

dislike for the formal policy process and you wrote recently about as a very skilled bureaucrat bolton was dangerous because he knew the inner workings of the system and therefore he knew how to are in their mind the best do you think he succeeded in that you know i think so i think i mean i don't know all the details of the decision the united states to withdraw from. intermediate nuclear forces agreement but it's the sort of thing bolton would do like he doesn't believe in arms control agreements generally and he apparently just came up and he had an opportunity to push says. the military who didn't want to leave the agreement don't get russia or voice a new situation and others don't he just he can on certain issues he could because he was close to the president when he was the president agreed and they could run in this run

a decision through the minimum consideration in terms of solution that after bolton's firing he and president trump already exchanged some unflattering comments about one another and i got there it from your writing that you don't hold president trump in very high regard you called him a decidedly american president i wonder if you feel sympathy for both the now that he joined the camp of president trump's critics are yes i mean i think. one of the persons who is an expert in foreign policy making a comment after reading our book about national security advisors in manuscript said this is the advice for future national security advisors choose your president wisely. which is of course a joke because you don't get if you're asked of you you don't get to choose your president however brant scowcroft when he said the model for how to be a careful are strong but behind the scenes negotiator policy manager worked for

h.w. bush who was an easy a good president to work for syria's president on policy who would who wanted. scowcroft to make connections to build a harmonious team when you have if but when you have a different kind of president who is very willful very loose and chronic it's much harder obviously others have had problems as aides to try to not just the national security adviser well professor def there we have to take a short break now but we'll be back in just a few moments stay tuned. it's always only been a matter of time impeachment has always been on the agenda subtly on the issue in

process but the sticking points the democrats and the liberal media seem to remove over a telephone call to the ukrainian president what could possibly go wrong. as a tense situation in venezuela is still all over the news the problem in venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been great . only implement inside venezuela things are different we're going to announce sanctions against petroleum to venezuela so sudan famously have a supplement to. them but that protocol that it assumes yet to come to the moment. the whose story isn't new nixon called in henry kissinger to tell him that it would not be tolerated in latin america and old terms of

economic and social system could take hold and therefore the policy would be to make. the chilean economy scream so once and making the economy of venezuela schoolies. come back to well the part that baghdad flared and professor all public policy at the university of maryland professor bassler present tribes new up point for national security advisers definitely much less colorful much last known from what you have heard about robert there brian do you think he is a good pick. who is probably better suited to working for it with trump and bolton

he seems to be a basically co-operative conciliatory character he has moderate credentials in foreign policy he wrote a book published during the 2016 presidential campaign whose was mainly on colin maker who has sent a very short essays attacking various forms of elements of obama foreign policy so we have some knowledge he also seems to have a reputation for working smoothly with others he worked in presidents who come up with presidential campaigns so i think he is not mean it's hard to know how well he will function in the job and he may or may probably will the odds are against him becoming a really strong and effective force for foreign policy simply because it's not clear that his relationship with trump will develop in that direction and also the secretary of state has very much has established himself as the primary

presidential adviser and well pump a 0 apparently him supported recommended the appointment of brian nevertheless. is not likely to want him to play a major role now you mentioned mr o'brien foreign policy credentials and. for many russians in particular. that's interesting because he served as a foreign policy adviser to mitt romney during his presidential run again barack obama in that campaign is memorable to this country you because of romney characterizing russia as america's number one geopolitical foe which a many people now take as a sort of a geopolitical prophecy do you think mr a bride to be trying to influence the jumps policy on the russia in in this same kind of brain russia being america's number. one geopolitical foe. i have no idea i think that he will. tend to support firm policies these are really russia but

whether he will initiate these policies is hard to say obviously the president has tried it at times to be more conciliatory with mr putin and the president will probably continue to try to be that so how but how is hard to know what. what are brian can do on this clearly he's not a not a great. positive supporter of russia mr brime is the 4th national security adviser on to tromp after general flynn who i think didn't really get a chance to get the ball rolling general mcmaster who is remembered as a bit of a for a one to trying to put it mildly both i think intellectually and temperamentally and mr bolton who we already discussed do you see any math to you how troubling hires and fires people for what is arguably one of the most influential positions

within any administration and yes the only method i find is very situational when flynn was appointed he was probably one of the few people that trump knew in the nicer security field and he had been a loyal supporter during the campaign and his problem and he was obviously one of sympathetic relations with russia and this all seemed to be where trump wanted it now flynn unfortunately messed up very early and so he became the most rapidly fired some security advisor in the history of the position mcmaster was widely praised in foreign policy in defense communities as someone who is careful ripper fresh you know and cetera but as sometimes has been the case money advisors he is master established an elaborate policy process. trying to for a thorough review of issues and trump didn't want that in want to participate in it

and he didn't he want didn't want his hands to be tied by a process so rick aster wears they're just short of 2 jobs the national security advisers typically has to do one is to manage the process 2nd is to advise the president now mcmaster tried to manage the process in a very elaborate way and many presidents don't want that. but that he also presumably gave advice to the president it's not clear how much his advice was welcome or not. well professor duster trump is often ridiculed for saying that he trusts his god over advise process given that these policy process labs his predecessors tsu many am i would say disastrous very expensive and repeated mistakes at least in the middle east isn't he justified in distrusting that policy process the process hasn't been able to operate too well

under trump so how maybe you should just trust a but it's also a process very much as any process depends very much on what the president's operating style is how he wants to work and in this case is president who has assured attention span he wants to follow his gut instincts rather than broad announces and he wants to have it done with people who are congenial but peo is the only senior foreign policy official so far who seems to have mastered the art of working affectively withdrawn friends and this he is therefore emerged sector state as the primary advisor whether he's whether trump is right or wrong to distrust the policy process he is the creator of it whether he knows that or not but it's no secret that. trump pretty much the national security council and organizationally he's white house is often criticized for being too disorganized

absent conscious for example to his predecessor barack obama who tried to put or at least try to put the basque practices into the policy works and yet if we look at his decisions let's say he's decision on libya you know we just heard not only that country but have major consequences for europe with the ensuing migration crisis that doesn't strike me as too well thought through they say with syria his secret order authorizing the cia to work with saudi arabia in trying to overthrow bashar al assad and in that country i mean to use president obama's phrase and to modify that a little bit don't you think that trump with all his mere cure curial temperament with all his disorganization that he has still done much less stupid stuff than president obama himself who like the policy process so much i mean it's harder.

comparison i think obama was much more forceful much more careful the libya intervention turned out badly at the time there was a time urgency about it because. gadhafi is forces were heading toward benghazi and they were likely to. promise to have a very. shrilly shoot up all the demonstrators that were going to be there and so it was it was a time when the allies were supporting so he could do it with a coalition not a room and it was i'm pleased to be done obviously it was affective to. overthrow gadhafi not effective in terms of any sort of stable regime that followed syria obviously obama did not succeed there but then is a term. a difficult problem or obama's very his or his or ran agreement here

randi who is i think the polar opposite of trump's dealing with he would work very hard and logically he put together a team of analysts he were patient and then when there was an opportunity to get the iranians to make see different commitments to constrain their nuclear development. or when for doubt it was controversial because people who criticize him for saying he didn't solve the problem of river pretty did solve it for 10 years and then when i think big problems with iran started when he had bolton's urging who wanted to blow that up and did but professor there i think. the policy should be judged by its intentions bye bye bye its output you mentioned the iran deal as good as it for us it didn't last long as we all know but the leap in deal you know i believe be an affair if we laughed huge impact i mean we still

don't know how it's going to a fag the entire continent 2 continents and both africa and europe and i would blame mr obama for not considering joe graphic strategic factor is there around there there are all of the migration flows and how it could affect america's closest allies i mean we we've been talking about the policy process but isn't the policy process is it its whole purpose do you think about things like that when you deal with the emerging before you have an emergency situation on your hands. all that is true i don't. so i think libya historian at the time in libya looked like their success for about a year afterwards now it looks like a mistake or you may exaggerate how important libya is in is a relatively low population country at its height a bomb a special security council how the round 400 personnel people on it and i know that

it produced a lot of discussion in washington about the correlation between the size of that body and it's a factor in the us is it clear how these body operates on the trump is not at all clear on operation under trump i was an on record criticizing the size of the national security staff under obama i would do so at a conference at west point and i argued that that the problem is you get lots of people who are very competent policy people put don't have the ear of the president or maybe even the ear of the nice and security advisor if you have maybe maybe maybe you as in 400 policy people with maybe there were 250 policy people there that's just too many in this day and in let there be almost bound to take over functions that are better performed in the state department the pentagon and cetera so i think it is it was a problem. so far as one can tell trump and his 2 sisters have

more slowly dismantled the process or peoples' it with people with like minded ideologues who he says the way flynn started out and that's the way bolton started out no bringing in people who has his views in front you need the nicer security council staff to be looking at alternative views and to present these to the president and to the cabinet too so that they can get. a sense of what the issues are and what their choices really are i mean somebody like libya as you say needed needed to be think people need to think ahead it's not at all clear what the what the good options were this is the dolphin you wish me a mess professor just that i just want to add that i was on the ground in libya and in gaza in fact at that time and i think their reporting in western media hugely hugely exaggerated the threat posed for gaddafi he in fact never threatened bloodbath but it was very expedient for the american foreign policy to

exaggerate the threat unfortunately we have to leave it there we run out of time but i gratefully greatly appreciate your being here with us thank you very much and thank you very much for the opportunity our viewers can keep this conversation going in our social media pages and i hope to see the same place same time on all of the part. of.

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