This will be the ‘end’ of the Trump presidency | John Bolton

It just feeds suspicions among Democrats for sure, but among people in Trump's own base, that he is hiding something. So if he's not, then it's certainly a self-inflicted wound. But it also, I think, points to incompetence at Justice and Attorney General Bondi in particular,

and that's not going to be helpful to Trump either. be there. Hi, I'm Maddie Hale and welcome to the Trump Report. Today I've got former National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton on the show. Just a reminder that you can watch us every day, Monday through Friday on the Trump Report YouTube channel, or you can stream us as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Ambassador John Bolton, thank you so much for joining the Trump Report today. We need to kick off, of course, with Donald Trump's State of the Union address last night. Two hours long, the longest address in history. He boasted, of course, about his success as

brokering the end of many wars, labelling Democrats crazy, talking about trans people and of course saying that he's winning the economy. But Ambassador, I mean, what was your response to the address?

Well, my first reaction was not as bad as it might have been. I thought with several Supreme Court justices in the chamber of the House of Representatives, he might have insulted them directly. He didn't. He actually shook hands with all four of them, three of whom voted against him on the tariff case that was decided last Friday. And I thought in terms of performance, Trump really produced and could have some positive effect for him. I mean, bringing in the gold medal winning U.S. men's hockey team, that's always good. He gave out a couple of congressional medals of honor. I mean, it was a performance.

And he did finally, more or less in Trumpian fashion, stay on the message that his political advisors wanted him to stay on, which was to address what over here we call the affordability issue. And he varied from his script only rarely as far as Trump goes, which you can imagine if the script was almost two hours long, what would have happened if he had gone off on

a few of his favorite riffs? The real question is, so I think overall he took advantage of the evening that really is the biggest focus of attention for the president in any given year. But Trump is in the media so much, 24-7 some people would say, that you have to wonder whether even the State of the Union message will have a material effect. So I don't think we'll know for a couple of weeks. My guess is probably not. But at least from his point of

view, he didn't make

things worse. On the note of the economy, the president was accused of ignoring the hardships Americans are facing. Earlier in the week, Reuters had put out an article detailing that White House advisors had been telling the president to really stick to the script in the sense of stick to the economy and make sure Americans really know where the priority of the Republican Party is. And that's what they voted in for. But you know, when it came to this address, a recent AP-NORC poll found that just 39%

approve of Trump's handling of the economy, 59% disapprove. But on the ground in the United States, Ambassador, how do you think Americans are finding the state of the economy? Is it as strong as Trump says it is?

Well, it's no surprise that a president, any president, talks about what a great job he's doing. And for Trump, that just comes naturally. He only does great jobs. He never does a poor job. He never has a problem. The issue really, though, is similar to the problem that President Biden confronted when his advisors were telling him that at the macro level, the economy's in really good shape and trying to persuade the American people that actually things are fine when

in right in front of them, they don't think they're fine is not a winning proposition. So I think there is an argument that while Trump rang the chimes for what he considers to be his accomplishments, average people saying, well, what does this tell me about inflation? What does this tell me about job security? What does this tell me about how my day-to-day living is going to be affected?

No, I don't think he did a very good job on that. That's one reason why among voters at large, I don't think there's a lasting impact to the speech and if he doesn't change that tune soon, you know, opinions harden before November. People say by the summer, by June or July. You can't wait until September and October to try and persuade people because their minds get made up. So he missed an opportunity in that sense, although he did want to

make it clear that he thought at the macro level the economy was all right. And that's understandable, as I said.

After the State of the Union address, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that Trump needs all four years, not just two. If we lost the midterms, heaven forbid, if we lost the majority in the House, it would be the end of the Trump presidency in real effect. I mean, once Trump's term is up constitutionally, he really can't run for another term. Of course, you and I can't predict the future if he tries to change that. But as it sounds right now, he only has until the 2028 election. So if Republicans do lose the House, Ambassador, is Mike Johnson

right? Is this effectively the end of the Trump presidency?

Well, it certainly is in terms of any legislative accomplishments and even more so if Republicans lose the Senate, which is, I think, less likely to happen, but not impossible. I think what Johnson's really referring to is if Democrats get control of the House, they will control all of the committees and every committee will begin an investigation of the Trump administration within that committee's jurisdiction.

And there'll be a lot that go after the allegations of public corruption that he and his family are profiting by his time in the White House. The Democrats will impeach him, there's no doubt about it. They just do it automatically. I'm not sure it works to their advantage, but if they use control of all these various committees to shine a spotlight on things they consider poor performance by Trump, inadequate

answers in the first term, it'll just make Trump really doing anything that could have a lasting impact that much higher. It could, on the other hand, also drive him more toward foreign policy, where presidents constitutionally enjoy a lot more authority independent of Congress. That's been true in many administrations, even ones not as troubled as Trump. In the last two years of a president's second term, what's going overseas looks a lot more

interesting than dealing with Congress in the hands of the opposition party.

On the note of overseas, let's kind of get into global politics now. On the four-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US abstained from voting on a resolution of lasting peace and a full ceasefire at the UN General Assembly. Now, the US's failure to vote put them in the same company as China, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Iraq, Qatar, and more. So, Ambassador, make this make sense for me. How does the United States put themselves in a position where they're mediating peace talks,

they're providing intelligence to Ukraine, they're putting on the pressure for Europe to pick up the bill on aid, but they fail to vote alongside Ukraine for lasting peace?

Ambassador David M. Doolittle Well, I think it was a big mistake on Trump's part, and it won't get much attention in the United States since very few people pay attention to the United Nations at all. And the excuse that they gave was that there was language in the resolution that was unhelpful to the effort to get peace. And they're referring specifically to language critical of Russia, which happens to be accurate. So I mean, I've been in situations myself at the UN where somebody's trying to do something at the General Assembly or the Security Council that's unhelpful

to other negotiations that may be going outside the UN context. So, it's not an irrational concern to have, but in this case, a clear mistake for the US not to support this resolution.

Well, yeah, Marco Rubio, he said that we cannot support a resolution that does not reflect the realities of diplomacy. But in turn, is he saying that if they voted alongside Ukraine, that that would essentially derail the negotiations that they've got going on? Because right now, it doesn't really seem like these negotiations are really going anywhere. And anytime I have a military analyst or a political analyst come on the show who's familiar with Putin and the way that Russia operates, will tell you that Putin's only agreed to involve Russia in these negotiations

to buy them some more time. Well, I don't think any UN resolution would have any impact on Putin, either, for the same reason people don't care in the United States, they don't care in Russia either. It's kind of theater. But it's, you know, if you can't tell the truth about what your objectives are, it says something may be wrong with your objectives. And look, it's not inconsistent to say we want to try and find a satisfactory settlement to what's going on in Ukraine at the same time, say Russia committed unjustifiable,

unprovoked aggression. Personally, to me, I wouldn't be seeking a ceasefire now because I don't think that that's the right way to leave this in what could be a division of Ukraine on a nearly permanent basis once the ceasefire comes into effect. But it's just a mistake by the administration. I think Rubio probably realises it. Who knows where the idea came from, but it was a bad

idea. In a bizarre situation, Ukraine's ambassador to the US revealed this week that back in November of last year, when the Ukrainian military had struck a Russian Black Sea oil facility. It had impacted US investments in Kazakhstan. So this is because the attack damaged certain infrastructure tied to the Caspian pipeline, which transports Kazakh oil and involves big companies, US companies, such as Chevron. But Ambassador, is it unusual for the United States government to issue

a diplomatic warning to Ukraine to pretty much say, look, be careful where you strike? Well, I think the issue of targeting in Russia does have a certain sensitivity for the US, although in most cases, what the Ukrainian military has done has been helpful to the United States, including, I guess it's over a year ago now, an incredible drone operation inside Russia, drones launched out of tractor-trailer trucks that had gone deep into Russian territory, attacked and destroyed about a dozen Russian heavy bombers at their bases.

And these are the kinds of bombers whose duty is to carry nuclear weapons to drop on the United States. So we should be very grateful to Ukraine for reducing Russia's capability there. I just, I think it's the sort of thing you don't do in a direct way like that. I think common sense ought to prevail on both sides. But it's another example of just how misdirected the Trump administration is on Ukraine.

I mean, occasionally your friends do something that you consider a mistake and fine, you talk to them about it. But this was more in line with protecting Russian sensitivities, I think, than American sensitivities. And that's what I find inexplicable, but it's part of the basis of why Trump seems to be so much in Vladimir

Putin's thrall. Well, you tweeted a few days ago, maybe it was yesterday, about how it's both the Democrats and Republican administrations that have failed Ukraine. So first under Obama, then Trump, then under Biden, then back to Trump. So you wrote that America's performance on Ukraine over the last 12 years has been sad, sad, sad. How do you think yesterday's lack of US presidents at the commemoration of the four year invasion in Kiev and this lack of vote at the General Assembly continues this

trend?

Well, I think it just shows in part that Trump is again backing away from the whole Ukraine issue, that he can probably see that the odds of a successful ceasefire negotiation are dwindling. And you know, the world to Trump is divided into two categories of people, winners and losers. He's always a winner.

He's never a loser. He's not getting anywhere in trying to find a satisfactory settlement. This is not helping his campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize. So I thought for some time he's going to try and exit the diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine. The question is, and I don't think that would make much difference because I don't think

the diplomacy is likely to succeed, but the real issue is if Trump does withdraw actively from diplomacy, does he at least continue the supply of U.S. intelligence and information to Ukraine, which is so helpful? Does he at least continue the sale of weapons and ammunition to European NATO members who then pass it on to Ukraine? That would be okay. That would allow Europe and Ukraine to continue to resist the Russian aggression successfully. But if he withdraws

and says no more military intelligence, no more weapons and ammunition, no more military support at all, that's a real problem. We don't know the answer to that yet and it's something to worry about.

I want to get your thoughts on the Epstein files, Ambassador. We knew last week from journalist Roger Sollenberg, he reported that the DOJ had known that the FBI had interviewed a woman who accused Trump of sexual assault when she was a minor, and they considered her a credible accuser. But now the update is that NPR has conducted a review of the DOJ's Epstein files. The evidence log provided to attorneys for Glenn Maxwell includes 325 FBI witness records. However, 90 of those 325 do not appear on the DOJ's website. Among

those missing is three FBI interviews related to the woman who did accuse Donald Trump of repeatedly abusing her from the age of 13. So here's what Democrat Robert Garcia said. He said, we have a survivor that made serious allegations against the president, but there's a series of documents and it would appear to be possible interviews that the FBI conducted with a survivor that are actually missing that we don't have access to. Now, no one is saying, well I'm certainly not saying that any of this has incriminated Donald Trump

in any way, but why do you think the DOJ would not publish 90 of these files, three of which

made serious allegations against the President? Well, it's part of the controversy over Epstein that keeps the whole issue alive. Trump has denied any impropriety. Nobody's actually, to my knowledge, found any evidence of actual misbehavior on his part. But time and time again, the Justice Department

has failed, really, to do what Trump asked for in the campaign, what Attorney General Pam Bondi said she would do, which is open all the files up. and again and again. You find that even when they released three million pages of documents, there's still documents they're holding back about Trump. And I think many people in Trump's own political base say, you know, all we want is transparency. That's what you

promised in the campaign. Why won't you deliver? Why do you keep saying there's nothing there, that people should move on? Put the documents out and the people will decide whether there's anything there or not. So it just feeds suspicions among Democrats for sure, but among people in Trump's own base

that he is hiding something. So if he's not, then it's certainly a self-inflicted wound, but it also, I think, points to incompetence at justice and Attorney General Bondi in particular, and that's not going to be helpful to Trump either.

Well, it doesn't really do anything for his case that he's done nothing wrong or wasn't involved in Epstein's criminal ring.

No, that's right. That's what makes the whole thing so hard to understand. If in fact he hasn't done anything, get the stuff out there. It's really, it's not hard to figure out and yet time and time again the Justice Department fails to do that and that simply reinforces, maybe it's a conspiracy theory, but it reinforces the view that he does have something to hide or if he doesn't personally have something to hide, there are others, close associates of his, business partners, who knows what, who do, and that he's covering up for them. None of this is helpful to Trump. Every day this scandal goes on, it's taking oxygen away from his effort to persuade people

the economy's in great shape and adding to the perception of many that in fact there's something there that he doesn't want to come out for his own personal reasons.

I mean, Ambassador, what's the likelihood that this is just a coincidence, that these are the files that are missing?

Ambassador David I find it hard to believe that coincidence can occur over and over again. And it leads to the question, well, who's in charge at the Justice Department? Who's in charge at the White House? Suzy Wiles, the Chief of Staff, gave this extraordinarily revealing interview some months back about all the mistakes that other people had made, not including her, and she said that Attorney General Bondi had whiffed on the initial disclosure of the Epstein files. Well, it goes on day after day. What is Suzy Wiles doing

to protect the President and get Bondi to do her job once and for all and put this out of the public light by making full disclosure?

We know from last week or a little bit earlier that the FBI had interviewed that woman four times but only the first interview was released to the public, which is the part that doesn't name Donald Trump. So some of the documents have been taken down, others have been put up within a week or so, others remain hidden still. But is the DOJ breaking the law by failing to make all of this public material, sorry, material public under the Epstein-Files Transparency Act? Because I

know that democratic lawmakers are wanting answers from them and potentially wanting them to kind of face up to whether face up to whether the law was broken.

Well, I think it was broken in a technical sense. They gave the Justice Department 30 days to get it all in public and it's either 3 million pages or 6 million pages. I mean, the volume, whatever it is, is extraordinary. And mistakes can be made when you're dealing with that much information. And I'm sure mistakes were made here, but it's the direction of the mistakes that all seem to point in what some fully, but to come back to one of your earlier questions, if the Democrats get control of the House of Representatives, then there will be acute oversight over the Epstein files.

Right now, the Republican-controlled committees, they pass the Disclosure Act, and then they hope they were done with it. They're not doing nearly what congressional committees could do, calling the attorney general up, taking her through page after page after page of these documents to get a detailed description, which I'm sure she can't provide because she didn't do any of it herself. But when the Democrats get control, they're not, they're going to take a different tack. And we're going to see these hearings with documents one

after the other put in front of Pam Bondi and other Department of Justice officials to try and explain how they mishandled the public disclosure.

Abbas, just a final question. Amanda Roberts, the sister-in-law of one of Epstein's most prominent victims, Virginia Dufresne, who sadly passed, I think, last year, she warned President Trump, we will not move on and the world is not moving on from this. The world sees clearly how there's a pattern with this administration and how they treat survivors. But this is a narrative and a storyline that Trump obviously wants no part of. As you mentioned, he wants to move on to the bigger, the broader picture of global conflicts, potentially the economy before the midterm elections. I wonder

if this worries him and if this is a storyline he can eventually escape because we've been talking about it for over a year and it's in the headlines multiple times a week. Yeah I think this

issue has cut through to the point where it simply will not go away and it may go beneath the surface for a few weeks or months, but it's a perennial problem. And I think the contrast that many people in this country have made between how our government has handled Epstein versus authorities in the UK, where a prince of the blood is now no longer a member of the royal family, where a major figure in the Labour Party, currently the government of Great Britain, has been, has lost his job

as U.S. ambassador to the U.S. and a number of other people, whereas in this country the effects of association with Epstein have been much less pronounced. And I think that, again, leads to the impression, at least it gives people a ground on which to argue, that justice is covering something up. And for the good of the Justice Department and confidence of people in the rule of law, if they don't do something to change it, this issue will persist certainly through the elections to Trump's

detriment. Ambassador John Bolton, thank you so much for joining The Trump Report. for joining The Trump Report.

Glad to do it.