ah, i'm absent or town senior watching a very special episode, a going underground, an interview with the u. s. h. former un ambassador president donald trump's national security advisor, john bolton. he joins me now from washington. d. c. at his memoir about his time in the white us, the room where it happened is out. now that master, thanks so much for coming on her. if it cottage news coming from a conduce in kandahar, you're actually the 2nd national security advisor of donald trump to be on going underground. you say in your book the room where it happened, the afghanistan deal that's trumps one time will prove who is right. and the full extent to the deal may not become apparent until after trump leaves office. what is your assessment as a former national security adviser of fee by the administration,

the foreign policy, especially on afghanistan? well, i think this is one of those few instances where bind and trump agree on on policy both wanted to get out of afghanistan at both the ignored the consequences. i think many people thought were foreseeable, what biden did was take trumps deal, which was flawed in many, many respects, and essentially adopted it as is on policy, disregard of the advice and senior advisers and the pentagon state department, the white house. and i think the consequences have been plain to say that returned afghanistan to control by the taliban and everything. and so flowing from that, including the likelihood of foreign chairs returning and again using afghanistan is based plan terrorist operations around the world. so this is a retreat by the united states from the international stage, something been believed. and since at least 2 was 9 say,

say i radically trump believe dana to, i think it's a mistake for the u. s. i think it's a mistake for well, still a certainly it's a mistake for the people of afghanistan. well in fact, as trumps, feel the date of a withdrawal was may the 1st you don't think that makes any difference. now look, i think all by and did was extended a couple months and it showed how, how little planning had been done, either by the trump administration or by for the execution to withdraw itself. and i should note my own polling on this subject. i think of firms what other people have observed that while at the beginning, many people said the withdrawal itself was executed poorly and no question about that. but it's caused them to rethink the consequences. the withdrawal itself, the return of taliban to power, the greater risk of terrorist attack, obviously calls into question the legitimacy of the withdrawal of decision. fundamentally, i think people now realize we are less secure after the withdrawal than we were

before the withdrawal. you said that biden changed in that answer in a way. what do you, i mean, he said when he was helping to confirm you at the state department, to anyone, my disagreements with you that you went to competent? i wish you were ambassador. i wish you were dumb to get a bit of shots with you. you're competent and honorable. what do you think the president meant by the now president meant by that? i think i took it as a compliment to sort of a backhanded compliment to be sure, but look i, i've been on the opposite side of joe biden on almost every major question in foreign policy for a long time. and i think that was a recognition. we disagreed and they didn't have the usual politics of personal destruction issues. they could go after me on so they had to try something else. i don't think he's going to appoint you at national security adviser any time soon. perhaps the top objective in your, in your book, as regards afghanistan, you make clear as to prevent the potential resurgence of isis just tell us what you

think isis k actually is because we had cars. isaac's finance minutes, romans actually while on the program who negotiated actually with, by the, in the bus, he claim that it was trumps. the mother will bombs the, like a was nuclear bomb that was dropped by tremble and have guys done acted as a recruitment sergeant for isis, but is that isis rights is kay. this is complicated. these different terrorist terrorist groups. terrorist factions don't have identity cards that they can show. i'm al qaeda isis. kate, i'm this, people drift back and forth. i think the, the main threat right now of regrouping terrorist in afghanistan is al qaeda. i think ok is never really left. i think they've been embedded with taliban in their exile across the border in pakistan for the last 20 years. and i think al qaeda will take advantage of renewed taliban control to recreate the sanctuary is the rear base area that they used afghanistan before isis is

a new phenomenon. but look in iraq and syria. it was an offshoot of al qaeda and isis k, which is the acronym for the isis affiliate claims to control the tip. roughly the territory of afghanistan is just another manifestation, the, the tragedy at the mosque. you mentioned a similar bombing occurred a few weeks ago. i c k 2 credit for both for shi masks. isis k, obviously fanatic. sunni terrorist group, but there's rivalry between isis k and taliban. but i, i could say rivalry today i could see a coalition between them tomorrow. this is a changing environment in afghanistan. obviously, just a couple of months ago, they were an exile across the border. now they're in control of cobble. i expect to see there to be further developments, but i,

i think it's hard to predict. but what i would say is that this potential for congregating terrorist from anarchic areas around the world, toward a more hospitable government in afghanistan, i think it's something we should all be we're, i mean the kind of an, obviously say they're sworn enemies with isis k. and you seem to say that al qaeda are embedded within it. we've had the taliban on this program. there are a defacto negotiations going on between nato governments and the taliban. you mean they're kind of negotiating with al qaeda more or less? well, i think there's a danger that there's, if there's a big question, whether there's a new moderate taliban leadership or whether it's the same old crew that governed afghanistan in the late 19 nineties, i think it's still early to make a final conclusion. but i think the early evidence is not very encouraging, but moderate forces have somehow taken over with taliban. and i think it's one of the reasons why even the buys administration has been hesitant to unfreeze afghan

assets, turn them over to taliban to resume humanitarian assistance until we find out whether there's still a terrorist group as they seem to be or whether there's something else the europeans through the european union have jumped in a little bit early. i think they may come to regret that a lot of money. they seem to be giving. i mean, some might say it was after all the united states and britain that were trying to overthrow outside of syria. and that meant that, of course, alliances were made with groups affiliated to i said ok and are in syria. and i mean, everyone knows the u. s. history and the history with the merger dean. isn't this another case of a terrible blowback that isis k is actually a kind of descendant of british and u. s. policy and serious in 2011? well, i don't think so. i mean, i think what happened in to, to take it back to the iraq syria theater. is it after brock obama withdrew

american forces from iraq in 2011? because really what could go wrong? everything. everything was taken care of, that's when ice this arose in western iraq and eastern syria and we had to go back in to counter this new threat or more virulent form of al qaeda. so i hardly think that it was in reaction to our withdrawal that we saw isis arise. i think it was the spread of this terrorist mentality which, which was of course, the thing to read. of course, one can say that then it's still a descendant of u. s. u k policy because of the invasion of iraq. i mean, i the, i the way with them. i, maybe it all goes back to british imperialism in 1000. everything does of uh huh. know that this is more recent over the 2001 war i should. i mean, before we leave have get a chance to just quickly say, you have warned that

a taliban victory in gobble gives them potential access to 150 nuclear weapons. what do you mean that was misquoted from a, from an earlier interview. what i have said was, i worry that the take over by taliban in afghanistan could provide aid and comfort to radicals in pakistan. pakistani taliban itself, other terrorist groups that the pakistani government created along with the extremist in the inter services intelligence directorate and other parts of the pakistani military if those extremists took control and pakistan than that government would have access to the country store of nuclear weapons. and so did you make that point in when you were national security advisor and what no one listened to you, the potential for an absolute catastrophe? i did make that point several times. i thought it was a compelling reason to keep american a nato forces in afghanistan. obviously that was not persuasive. donald trump and wouldn't have been, this is joe bud. well, it's not necessarily meaning

a continued occupation. it could mean other policies, but clearly that's a terrifying prospect. i should just because we go to trial here of julia. sounds good. coming up. you appointed richard grinnell is i right. yours who took over is acting national security advisor. when you know, i didn't appoint 8, richard or now worked for me in new york and he was the spokesperson for the u. s. mission to you. and when i was you an investor, will you ever privy to this thing about grinnell and trump organizing in the san pardon deal if he reveal the sources as news to me? well, i have to go to the actual bombing of syria that you are a national security advisor at the time. so some might say that also emboldened, i says al kinder in syria. because you a defacto defending isis elk i do in syria. what did you, what do you, how do you look up on that to attack on syria in 2018?

we certainly weren't defending isis or, or anyone else way would have seen it. that was, well, they would be wrong to see it that way. what happened was the syrian government used chemical weapons, probably chlorine based against civilian targets in and around damascus almost exactly one year earlier in april 2017. the syrian government is done. same thing us had responded militarily and clearly, assad had not been deterred from engaging in that kind of conduct again. so this was actually started my 1st day in office, april 9th, 2018. it was a busy week, but the british and french came together with us. we did another retaliatory attack in response. i don't think that deterred assad either. but to me, it was, it was evidence that the, that the danger of the anarchy we saw in syria with the presence of rhino forces, has ball coming over from lebanon to support the sad regime. the accumulation of

chairs forces in and around it was a compelling reason to keep us in nato forces in northeastern syria, just another place. trump wanted to withdraw from. so this was part of the complex a dealing with in the trump administration to maintain stability, which was n u. s. interest rather than withdraw and see a return either to terrorist control or iranian back control. yeah, you didn't mention, you mentioned the regional allies, they didn't mention russian troops. you don't think it was compelling when mad. dog, mathis from the pentagon, said if that missile strike, it killed russian soldiers. it would have meant war with moscow. i don't know when, when mad is said that, but i can do those if it's in the he it, it's in the context of that that the joint chiefs of staff chairman joe dunford, called his russian counterpart shortly before the strike and syria,

as he had done the year before, to say, look, you see what's happened here with this chemical weapons attacked by the assad government and just want you to know that we're not going to sit idly by so that you know, you need to look out for your russian forces. we understood fully and i think that's what madison is saying, that if we were not careful that there might be collateral damage, which we didn't want. this was not in any sense, and rush was aimed that the assad regime all be that you said the pigeon was lying about it not being a chemical attack. you also say in the book that actually did. that's right. that was the russian position, and that was incorrect, isn't it all the evidence indicated? yeah, obviously, very controversial. but you do mentioned in the book with antonio gutierrez, who slammed the strike for not having un security council approval. it was being ridiculous, kind of symptomatic of the fact the lack of authority of the un secretary general in the you. and now you famously said can demolish

a hole in the floor in new york. it doesn't make any difference. i think the organization is grin locked in and it's political institution. sad say largely a failure. if we've gone to the security council, i think we almost certainly would have faced a russian and chinese veto. the administration had not gone for security council approval in 2017 and i did the british, nor the french felt there was any need for security council approval. so i think we were well within our rights said to conduct the strike with without reference to the security council capacity. boldenall. stop you that more from the 27th national security advisor of the united states after this break. ah, it's been decade since the fall of spain's fascist regime, but old wound still hadn't hailed your interests and going into some of them throw

in the swiftness because when we find out you michel, feed him okay. people to miss hippo said, cutting me in the past with us as me neighborhood anxious. and they think ultimately you know, thousands of newborn babies were torn from their mothers and given away and forced adoption. they don't really bother you just yet for the easter bit. my old role is a fairly well amended to this day mothers still search for grown children, while adults look in hope for their birth parents. with ah, welcome back. i'm still here with the full, the u. s. ambassador of u. n. and the 27th us national security advisor, john bolton, quite

a lot of us subsidy to the you and i know that under trump, you got out of unesco. biding took you back in. did you advise of national security adviser that some of that us subsidy g u. n. g reduced, i've long felt based on my tenure in new york is un ambassador and other positions i've held that the u. s. money is, is wasted in many respects misspent in many respects. and my overall reform proposal for the un is to abolish what are called assess contributions, which are essentially mandatory. the u. s. pays around 2022 percent of the budgets and most agencies, i'd make all contributions from national members of the you and i'd make all. busy contributions, wow, but i mean, there must be people all over the world. you believe that would agree with all this . why did you get nowhere with all of this, the notion to make contributions, voluntary, unfortunately didn't have agreement all around the world. but i think if it did, it would be like a su nami, sweeping through the halls of the us. the un security council, of course ratified,

and the u. s. at the j. c. b o. a. what prospects do you think? i mean, what's the delay since biden go back in of the iran nuclear deal? i know you're, you're an opponent. i don't know whether you think you think the option is to attack iran militarily. i'm not sure what your view is of iran u. s. relations in by the administration for all. busy public purposes remains committed to trying to get back into the deal and to get to run back into the deal . i think the deal is fatally flawed when it was agreed in 2015. it has gotten any better with age. i think the regime and cheiron is committed to getting deliverable nuclear weapons. it's never showed any evidence, whatever views your views are well known about what, what should policy be now the best step forward given how unpopular the cheiron regime is inside afghanistan is to find ways to split the,

the top leaders in the revolutionary guards and the armed forces and to reflect what is the wide spread view among the population out. plenty of places where there aren't western reporters reporting, how unpopular that regime is and see if it can't be overthrown. give the government to the people of iraq using the title of that. i thought it is quite popular in afghanistan and iran is obviously taken then maybe a 1000000 refugees there. and iran has been linked to the talks. i mean, obviously the new afghan talks happening in most current regime in iran did the unpopularity the regime in iran. i think that is that it's, it's only through regime change in iran that you're going to get a strategic decision. they're not to pursue nuclear weapons. but obviously, the last time there was a successful regime change by the u. s. was against the democratic lead mazda deck, bony saunders, fond of talking about that? isn't that how you got into this mess? i know douglas has a big hero of yours. he actually seeing that with,

with the president for sure. i should say we did it with the british, but it was actually most of back who had violated the iranian constitution at the time. and i think it was, it was far more elements of popular opposition to most dec support for the shot. it led to it led to the islamist revolution of $979.00 now and then it followed it. that's your engaging and a post hoc air go back, found it. now i've, i lived in iran. i got to tell you. and the sanctions didn't affect rich people in iran, your vocal supporter of sanctions. i mean, do you know how many thousands of ordinary iranians men, women, and children are killed by u. s. and nature sanctions on iran? you think it's a price worth paying? like madeline albright with the $500000.00 iraqi children. now it says that the sanctions have never been directed against the medicine or you know,

the heights. but the effects are caused by the mishandling of the iranian economy. the corruption among even the mullers themselves who have grown there day and their families grown. you know, there is a case of you except that, you know, it's shoring up. i mean, cuba is a good example here. you sanctioned the country, you create support for that government, whatever the color that government is, i think cube is a good example. the islands recently been swept by anti regime demonstrations. they're primarily from young people and this is, this is significant in before you hired in the streets and it's really quiet now, thousands, thousands all over the island. i know in the book, you're concerned about venezuelan help for cuba, the washington tank cpr claims 40000 children may be killed by sanctions on venezuela. why did you not want trump to meet madura? apparently trump expressed a desire to meet madura and you treated this guy. guido is a president,

is very strange anecdotes in your book about the wedding ring of his wife. you might have to explain that one as another trump project, trump and go, trump had a feeling for authoritarian leaders like bottom your food near to want asian tank chem john non douro is just part of that, that, that a group of people. and i think he decided ultimately on his own, he didn't want to do it. but the, the, the clear policy we had was to support the constitutional process in venezuela. and the, the duly elected legislature had declared bureaus, fraudulent election, invalid. and therefore, there was a vacancy in the presidency, which one guy know was elected to fill. and we recognize that government, i might say this constitution was written by hugo chavez in his early days. so he always supported chavez. i know ambassador. and that's why i'm a freshman,

but you don't, but it subscribe to churchill, george, or maybe trump wants to speak to madura the country with the law, just no noise reserves. why not? as his national security advisor say you set up a meeting like that? kim jong well, maybe not like the kim jong and when obviously. yeah, look at the question is what, what is in the interest of the people who venezuela interested the united states? and i think we saw very clearly that chavez enduro had driven the country into poverty. they had, they had taken, as you say, a country is to 40000 people not being killed by us sanctions book. and that, that is, that is somebody's estimate. there's simply no evidence for that. it is the case that the medical system in venezuela over a period of 20 years of chavez bureau rule has been, has been, has been just devastated. and as has the economy more broadly now, i know you are privy to the highest secrecy documents. you must have been because trump tried to try to take you to go for the book just to check for the 5th time.

that on the 6th time, the young leaked any secrets, but all those documents must show that china is headed to become the most economically powerful country of this century. why? why are you against strategic oems limitation treaties given that, that would arguably give china close to make more nuclear warheads, more nuclear missiles than even the united states possesses today? well, we, we could talk about the, china's economic future. i think it statistics are inflated to say the least and i think it has enormous internal problems. people don't recognize, but on the strategic weapons issue, what i have said is that i think we have to recognize that we're no longer in essentially a bipolar nuclear world. russia and the united states that was true and cold war days, there were smaller nuclear powers, china, britain, france, others. but in those days, if you are going to have arms control, it was, it was

a bipolar negotiation today. and we read in the newspapers from commercial satellite overhead of chinese construction of hundreds of new ballistic missile silos, which are obviously being excavated to put in missiles carrying nuclear warheads. china's capabilities in the nuclear field are expanding enormously. so what i've said consistently, when i was in the government, the before that and since i've left, if we're going to have new strategic weapons negotiations with russia, china has to be included. it makes no sense whatsoever to pretend that we're still living in the cold war, bipolar nuclear error, except that policy has li moved to moscow in beijing together. u. s. nate to a policy has moved moscow and b jane closer than ever as you know. i don't think it's us policy that's moving close together. i think they have a grown closer. i think that's moscow's choice, and i think it's

a big mistake for russia. i think rushes got a lot of oil that it's happy to sell to china. it's got strategic weapons. it's happy to sell china. but i think brush is making a very bad decision by casting its lot in the future for the rest of the century. potentially with china, i think it is in danger of losing over a long period of time control over much of russia, east of the euro mountains. i mean, you've got a country with a huge population and not many natural resources south of russia, with in that part of a lot of natural resources and very few people that doesn't speak long term strategic stability from the russian point of view. and i would just urge people in russia who are thinking about this issue to think long and hard before they get too close to china. but what would you say if you have, let me go to the national security adviser, even there is a u. s. s. joint strike carrier strike fleet right now, sailing to china's maritime borders. and even boris johnson is sending their,

his aircraft carrier to china. i mean, as a, as the basis increases, the number of troops increase around russia. as the navies of nato approach. china wouldn't you me advising alliances with china. i very strongly believe. ready that it's not and rushes long term interest to get closer to china by splitting away from, from the potential for closer relations with the west that we had after the collapse of the soviet union. i think we've lost a lot of time and opportunity and yeah, the way we were in russia tried that. and as we know, the agreement with global job is broken. and we've seen u. s. policy as regards a. iraq, afghanistan, libya, syria. we've seen what nato thinks of relations with russia. a alliance nato remains a defensive alliance that i would just say and perhaps you and i should discuss

this at greater length and in a future broadcast, i think rushes greater security lies moving west, not moving east. i just got to find the us then, obviously about the cove it pandemic. i don't know what you think the mistakes were by the trump administration, with your writing a day, maybe a sequel to this book about that element. but of course, criticism came for you. why did you abolish the national security council's pandemic response unit, just ahead of the coven virus that killed hundreds of thousands of americans. member. well, i didn't abolish it. i did something really bureaucratically quite a responsible. i merged it with the biological weapon june of the national security council. and in fact, if you look both the bob woodward's book, if you look at reporting in the new york times, the national security council staff, these very people in early january 2020, we're raising red flags about the dangers of coven. they were doing exactly what they were intended to do. the problem is not

a bureaucratic re shuffle within the n s. c staff was thompson willingness to take proven seriously at the beginning because he worry, it would re, uh, re effect his re election efforts. do you see the world without a strategic arms? imitation treaty is getting more dangerous or less dangerous? well, i think it depends on what countries like russia and trying to want to do with their strategic weapons. i think russia and the u. s. could find in a combination we did when i served george w bush's his under secretary of state for arms control. we signed the treaty of moscow in 2002, which reduced the operational and deployed strategic nuclear forces of both countries think that's possible again, but i think you cannot do that in the absence of having china participate. but do you think germany's your boy got no stream to i do it, make a mistake? sure. i think work, i think it's a mistake to become strategically dependent on any,

on any particular source of energy. and this is something that ronald reagan warren to europe about in the $198.00 jo bolden. thank you. and that's for the show will be back on monday when we ask a full, a technical co lead at google about technological clos war until then keep in touch by social media and let us know what you thought of. john bolton's on says to our question. ah ah, well the gig is up in president or another land merican country armed with volcano energy is calling out the wall street and the whole finance here class with a

headline stories this our the e u challenge is its own member states over migrant cracked gun saying violent pushback on boarders may be illegal, despite many saying it's brussels immigration policies, which have led to the survey. also add on the program r t speaks to former us national security advisor jumbled shares. his thoughts on the chaotic american withdrawal from afghanistan. i think this is one of the few instances where by and, and trump agree on policy both wanted to get out of afghanistan on the extreme cold sky high prices and the shipping, our correspondent visits so once derelict.