Trump's mask is slipping — the real Trump is now 'unleashed' | John Bolton

[00:00:00]There's just a disconnect in in large part because of Trump not being able to see the virtue of carrying allies with him. It doesn't mean they just sit up and salute and say yes sir automatically. That's his his adviserss do that but but leaders of foreign countries don't necessarily do it. You have to persuade them. That's called alliance management. He just doesn't do it.

[00:00:28]Hello and welcome to the Trump Report.

[00:00:30]I'm Maddie Hail. There's a lot to discuss now. We've got a few developments with the Iran war, namely Trump and Netanyahu yet again. We're also going to tackle a few domestic stories that have been making the rounds. A few uh former MAGA big Trump supporters that are, I guess, denouncing their membership to the Republican party. So, a lot to tackle today. Now, just a reminder, you can watch us every day, Monday through Friday on the Trump Report YouTube page. You can stream us as a podcast wherever you get your podcast and you can watch clips of the show on Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok. Of course, if you want to be a member of the Trump Report on YouTube, you can do so for about $6 a month. You get early access to the show and you get it ad free. So, my guest today is uh Ambassador John Bolton, a former national security adviser. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining the show again.

[00:01:12]>> Glad to be with you.

[00:01:14]>> We'll start off with this exchange between Donald Trump and a reporter as Israel continues to complicate Trump's efforts to wind down the Iran conflict.

[00:01:22]So a reporter said, you know, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that his forces are not leaving Lebanon. That is a sticking point. Trump responded, who did he tell that to? To which the reporter said he said it publicly in Iran. Trump said, "Well, we'll just have to take a look at that." And the reporter said, "But what would you do to make sure that he doesn't?" Trump says, "I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do, but it gets solved. I'm a problem solver. I get problems solved real fast, including with BB." But Ambassador Netanyahu is continuing to publicly insist that Israeli forces will remain in Lebanon despite repeated pressure from Trump to deescalate the situation. What stood out in this exchange was Trump's apparent surprise, I guess, that Netanyahu had already made that position so public today. So the question is, I guess if one of America's closest allies is openly resisting the White House preferred outcome, does Trump really have control of the situation?

[00:02:16]>> Well, I don't think Trump has control of the situation. I think the primary problem is he doesn't understand it. I mean, is Israeli intervention in southern Lebanon goes back pretty much to the opening days of of the contemporary uh Israeli state in 1948.

[00:02:31]And uh the fact is they're in in southern Lebanon because they're trying to drive Hezbollah back from the positions they have held close to Israel's northern border that's required ever since October the 8th, 2023, the day after the Hamas attack on Gazna.

[00:02:48]It's required the Israelis to evacuate their citizens from northern Israel as they as they put it in Israel shrinking the country. So what the military action now is is to give more time uh to defend against Hezbollah attacks. And for the Israelis that's really existential. Do you do you live in a country where you have a farm or a house or a business that you can you can use or are you constantly at risk from Hezbollah? This is really Iran pushing one of their cards uh and trying to get Trump to make concessions with respect to Hezbollah even though what we're supposed to be talking about is opening the straight of Hormuz and the Iranian nuclear program.

[00:03:25]Really the the Iranians have taken something that is peripheral to that central uh issue and and made it now the center of attention.

[00:03:33]>> Well Trump he was asked today or sorry yesterday about whether the United States had lifted sanctions on Iran. uh but he wasn't quite sure about if that had already happened. He did however claim through a true social post that the money would be going into escrow controlled by the United States. He then defended it to reporters saying the potential sanction relief uh is all about giving Iran this money to be able to feed its people and buy these American uh food products. But he also said they're not supposed to do that when pressed on whether Iran would instead use these funds to rebuild its military. But when there's no clear regime change, uh, Ambassador, how can the Trump administration control how Iran does spend this money?

[00:04:14]>> Well, they're going to find they can't.

[00:04:16]Just as they claimed they would control the revenues from oil sales in Venezuela after removing Maduro, what they're doing is simply turning the money over to the Venezuelan central bank. and Deli Rodriguez and the same gang of thieves who are running Venezuela, missing only Maduro are using it to pay government salaries, pay military salaries, basically buttress their own uh hold on power. And the same thing will happen in Iran. I mean, I don't think Trump fully understands what the mechanisms are that he's created. uh but let's just take this idea that uh uh it's really deals with the assets the Iranian assets to be unfrozen that JD Vance gave credit to Jared Kushner for coming up with the idea that those unfrozen assets would only be used to buy food and humanitarian goods from the United States. Big victory, right? Well, no, actually not a big victory. Who will distribute the food and humanitarian goods and and so on inside Iran? Well, the regime will do that and therefore who will get credit for it? The regime.

[00:05:17]Thus strengthening itself in power.

[00:05:19]Number one. Number two, uh let let me introduce the White House to the concept that money is fungeable. It's true that if you say unfrozen assets can only be used to pay for purchases from America, food or whatever, that simply relieves the regime of uh of of at least a partial need to feed its own population.

[00:05:39]Now, feeding the population isn't a high priority for this regime. Regime survival is, but to the extent any of their resources are freed up by these unfrozen assets or by oil revenues to do things it would have had to do with the limited amount of funds it does have. It frees those funds up to be used to rebuild the nuclear weapons program, rebuild the terrorist support networks.

[00:06:04]It's as clear as clear can be. And and I don't pretend to be a high finance here.

[00:06:08]So, Ambassador, you're against this $300 billion investment fund. I assume then >> there there's never going to be a $300 billion investment fund while this regime remains in place. This is this is another fantasy. Uh na name a company that's going to rush forward to put money into Iran. The the only place they're going to find investment capital, unfortunately, is from the likes of China, uh which would love to get in and get gain gator control over Iran's oil production. They understand they might have to make some capital investments for new drilling to beef up the uh dilapidated nature of the of the oil related infrastructure, but they've got the capital to do it and and they'd love to take exclusive uh control over Iran's oil. That's much more likely than the US controlling Iran's oil production as Trump seems to believe. You pro previously told me when you were uh here in London that Trump would look foolish if he ended up striking a deal with Iran that resembled the JCPOA, the very agreement that um Trump and you know you were supportive of him uh withdrawing from in 2018. Caroline Levit told Fox News that it's ludicrous to assume that President Trump would ever sign onto a deal that compares in any way, shape, or form to the disastrous JCPOA that Obama signed into. They gave the uh regime pallets of cash. So this framework appears to leave many of the toughest is issues resolved. There are no detailed nuclear concessions, no clear enrichment limits, no comprehensive inspection uh you know details, no restrictions on the ballistic missile program and no commitment to ending these proxy groups.

[00:07:44]So at the same time as we've been talking about Iran will receive sanctions relief, the ability to resume their oil exports, uh prospect of economic investments. So these are the harder things are being pushed down into further negotiations. So when you compare the substance of this framework framework to the JCPOA, the is the difference really as significant as the White House claims or is Trump now being asked to defend, you know, the same basic tradeoff he once condemned Obama for making.

[00:08:13]>> Well, again, this deal is really not that big. As you were saying, every significant issue is pushed down the road and delay always works on the side of a nuclear proliferator. Uh particularly in this case because Iran needs to dig much of its nuclear weapons program out from under the rubble that we've created. U Iran is getting things for free right at the beginning. It did it did get sanctions relief. The Treasury Department issued what's called a general license for 60 days for them to sell oil. The straight of Hormuz is not open. uh they they did get relief from uh uh from the blockade. The blockade is apparently letting Iranian ships through, but the straight of Hormuz is still closed to everybody else. So this is this is this is how you just you have to add this up bit by bit and and you'll see over time Iran really is getting the best of it. I think the basic problem was revealed by JD Vance uh in comments he made both before and after Geneva when he said you know the we're going to be really tough but but if the regime turns over a new leaf then we're ready to extend our hand. This is exactly what Barack Obama said going into the negotiations that led to the nuclear deal. So let's try and get this straight if we can. For 47 years the regime in Tehran has been run by a group of religious fanatic authoritarians.

[00:09:29]Okay. Now, today, in light of JD Vance's comments and thisou, they're going to say, "Let's dump that last 47 years of religious fanaticism. Let's let's become normal people and deal with the United States in good faith." It's not going to happen.

[00:09:43]>> So, do you regret pushing Trump to pull out of this deal in 2018, Ambassador?

[00:09:48]Does it seem like it >> The deal, the deal itself was a very bad deal. I'll leave aside the question whether Iran was violating the deal, which it was, excluding the International Atomic Energy Agency from effective verification, but the deal itself was badly flawed. For example, although people have always focused on the uranium enrichment issue, uh Iran has a separate path to nuclear weapons through uh plutonium reprocessed from the spent fuel of their Bucher reactor.

[00:10:16]And within the past months, uh, proliferation experts in the United States have estimated looking at the amount of fuel in spent fuel in the in the cooling ponds near Busher, looking at IEA records on how the reactor function, they estimate that Iran has enough plutonium uh to build between 200 and 400 nuclear weapons. No, nobody ever talks about that, but that's the belt and suspenders approach that Iran took, both enriched uranium and plutonium. and and it's it's a viable path. When the United States in the 1940s in the Manhattan project built the first nuclear weapons, the first two first atomic bombs u that were tested in New Mexico and dropped on Japan. The two bombs dropped dropped on Japan, one was enriched uranium and one was plutonium.

[00:11:03]This is a perfectly uh sound path if you're a nuclear proliferator. Uh and and uh and and we're just watching that happen. I want to get into the straight of Hamoose because you mentioned this before. You know, less than a week after signing this framework, Iran was once again talking about closing the straight of Hammoose and of course it hasn't actually been open as you point out, but Trump has just, you know, less than 60 days to turn this frame framework into a final deal. But it does feel as though Tan will continue to weaponize the straight of Heramoose to get whatever they want. Is that how you see the situation now and and years to come?

[00:11:37]>> Yeah. Well, you know, on the 60-day point, I don't have theou in front of I should have brought it, but it says unless extended for additional 60-day periods by the consent of the parties. I mean, you don't have to see you don't have to be a magician to see what's coming. Uh, and I I think that's really what uh what what is motivating the Iranians here. They think they're going to be able to drag this out uh and get additional concessions and and uh that's why the Lebanon issue uh is central to their bargaining. Uh that the they said that the bulk of the time in Geneva was spent talking about Lebanon. Well, that's their issue because they don't want Hezbollah fully destroyed by Israel has nothing to do with which what I think should be the central issue which is the nuclear program.

[00:12:20]>> Profess Professor Phillips O'Brien, he's quite prominent on uh Twitter. I can't remember which university he teaches at, but he wrote this. He said, "When people wonder why Trump has lost this war against Iran so quickly and completely, you only need to remember that this is the same person who called Putin a strategic genius and tried to bully Ukraine by saying it had no cards.

[00:12:38]Simple really. Is he right, Ambassador?

[00:12:41]Is it as simple as that? That Trump has lost the war and it is because he doesn't understand who was the aggressor, doesn't understand the actualities, the realities of the war.

[00:12:52]>> Well, he doesn't understand much. I think that's true. But but but here the the the military action did result in very significant setbacks for Iran. You know, one thing to keep in mind uh is while the Gulf Arab states in Israel were filled with reporters in February and March when the attacks were going on, there were almost no Western reporters in Iran. And it's it's very hard to get a sense of the damage done.

[00:13:15]But what Trump has done is take a partial military success, which would have been a bigger military success if we had continued. But he took a partial military success and made it a political failure. And the political mistakes that he made before, during, and after the war and is continuing to make are entirely of his doing.

[00:13:33]>> You mentioned JD Vance before. Trump joked last week uh that if the Iran deal falls through, he will blame JD Vance.

[00:13:41]Ambassador, you don't consider that a joke, do you?

[00:13:44]Well, we we there's a phrase in the United States that you say somebody is kidding on the straight, meaning it sounds like a joke, but he's deadly serious. And that's that's uh that's Donald Trump. Hey, hey, I I I I had this all solved and I handed it over to JD and he just completely messed it up. I can see it coming.

[00:14:02]>> Trump continues to view NATO through the lens of what it can do for the United States operations rather than a collective defense alliance, what it which it is. and he was asked about how he's reviewing the United States's presence in NATO and if he's had these conversations with uh NATO Secretary Marut. So Trump complained that allies refused to support his mission in the straight for he said that we spent trillions of dollars protecting Europe from Russia. When we wanted to help on small stuff they said no. Uh Star said no this is not Winston Churchill. Italy very bad Germany very bad. We spent hundreds of billion dollars and they'd rather not help. Stupid thing to say because we can say the same to them and we might. So this comes ambassador after just you know a few days after this public clash with Georgia Maloney who accused Trump of having made up claims that she had requested a photo with him at the G7 summit given that NATO was never designed to support this US-led operations in the Middle East. Is Trump picking fights with the very allies that he cannot afford to lose? And after Maloney publicly humiliated him, is the president discovering that even his closest friends are no longer willing to play along?

[00:15:10]>> Well, I don't think Trump understands the concept of alliances. I mean, he he does think we defend Europe. Uh Europe doesn't pay for it. We get no credit. We get nothing out of it. Uh in fact, I think uh the US does get a lot of advantages out of the NATO alliance. And I think it's been a mistake of American politicians, particularly on the left, for years, acting as though membership in NATO is an active charity by the United States. If you tell Americans, you know, we get a lot out of this alliance. I think it increases support doesn't doesn't decrease it. But Trump doesn't understand uh the the much of what goes into it. I do think that there's a case that Trump didn't bother to make that uh that the European members of NATO should have been more helpful in this conflict if Trump had had a strategic vision if he knew what he was after when he got started instead of playing it by ear. Uh there was a lot at stake here. I think the allies can say justifiably Trump never briefed us on what his plans were. And I'm not talking about the minutiae of how the attack would occur. But to make the political point, we couldn't live with this regime in Tehran anymore. U and and he might have had a lot more political support if he had. But but by the same token, I think European leaders were just saying, "Oh, he didn't brief us.

[00:16:25]We're not going to get involved." When this very much is in their interest. The price of oil is set globally. When when supply is restricted, the price goes up everywhere. uh and and Europe should recognize that this regime in Iran, this the the biggest supporter of international terrorism in the world, has missiles that can reach Europe, but not the United States and has committed plenty of terrorist attacks in Europe.

[00:16:48]So, there's just a disconnect in in large part because of Trump not being able to see the virtue of carrying allies with him. It doesn't mean they just sit up and salute and say yes, sir, automatically. That's his his advisers do that, but but leisures of foreign countries don't necessarily do it. You have to persuade them. That's called alliance management. He just doesn't do it.

[00:17:09]>> Specifically, what did you make of this rift between him and Georgia Maloney? I mean, these these two were close pals.

[00:17:14]They were close allies.

[00:17:17]>> Well, I I think this is an example of of uh of Trump again doing a self-inflicted wound. I mean, he starts by attacking the Pope. Now, now, let's be clear. It has nothing to do with whether you're a Roman Catholic or not. Uh the Pope is a revered figure. We can disagree with him. We should disagree with him when when he says things that uh we think are harmful to American national interest.

[00:17:40]But you basically don't attack the pope and then keep on doing it. So in Italy especially, this is not a particularly uh uh uh favorable position for Trump to take. And Maloney started distancing herself from Trump right at that stage.

[00:17:56]And now with elections coming up and Trump's disapproval rating being I forget what it is exactly somewhere between 75 and 80% in Italy. This is just good politics with her. This is something Trump can't understand that that uh that opposing him actually helps his opponents in Canada famously. He he criticized Justin Trudeau. He criticized Mark Carney during the Canadian election. The conservative Pierre Palevra, widely thought to be on the point of winning the election in Canada, lost because Carney was viewed as anti-Trump and that's what the people wanted. So Maloney taking an anti-Trump position in domestic Italian terms looks like it will benefit her.

[00:18:37]>> I want to get your thoughts on kind of on the note of, you know, I guess dwindling uh friendships and uh allies, Tucker Carlson, you know, he said he's done supporting the Republican party. He told a podcast, "I don't know what I'm going to do, but at this point, you know, how can you how can I or any American voter support a political party that's not loyal to the United States that puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens?

[00:19:01]I've been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican party. Um, and there's no defending this because it's immoral." He said that, you know, if I'm out, then that probably means that there are a lot of other people that are out.

[00:19:13]And this was uh something that Marjorie Taylor Green, she said, yes, that's true. She tweeted, "There are a lot of us that are absolutely fed up will not support a party that betrays its voters and country, but now that both have emphasized now both emphasized, you know, this doesn't make mean that they're going to vote Democrat." But Ambassador, what do you make of this exodus potentially a max mass exodus of staunch Republicans who are denouncing their party affiliation?

[00:19:41]>> Well, I don't think it'll be a mass exodus. I don't think Tucker Carlson really carries a lot of people with him.

[00:19:45]And I'd say good riddance. I'm glad he's out of the party. I hope Marjgerie Taylor Green is out of the party, too.

[00:19:50]You know, when when they talk about American foreign policy, they might as well be AOC or Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. They say essentially the same things. So, fine, let let them play Kumbaya on uh on the isolationist front.

[00:20:05]You know, Ted Cruz, senator from Texas, uh ran for president against Trump in 2016, widely thought to be looking at running in 2028. uh denounced Tucker Carlson the other day for being an anti-semite. And I think that's that's uh that's the kind of reaction that you're going to get. I I I have long believed that the Republican party at its base in Congress as well is still fundamentally a Reaganite or a Reaganite Bush party when it comes to foreign policy. We'll have the argument not so much in the context of the upcoming November congressional elections, but as we go toward the 2028 presidential election, I think it's going to be a battle well worth having and I think the Reaganite side is going to prevail.

[00:20:49]>> Uh on the note of, you know, Trump kind of losing, I guess, confidence. So, a journalist and writer Paul Waldman, he has written a Substack uh column and it says, "What if we covered Trump's age the way we covered Biden's?" I'm not really in the camp that believe that the media actually covered Biden's age and decline properly or early enough. But in it, he argues that Biden's age dominated headlines, growing concerns about Trump's own decline are receiving far less scrutiny. He was citing this Reuters and Ipsos poll that found that 61% of Americans believe that Trump has become more erratic with age, including 30% of Republicans, and only 45% of those surveyed believe that he's mentally sharp. But Ambassador, you've worked with him. Do you see something to be genuinely concerned about when it comes to his age and mental fitness? Or do you think this is just an easy dig, an easy way to take down a president who is 80?

[00:21:41]>> Well, I think a lot of people are really seeing for the first time what Trump is really like. I saw most of this behavior behind the scenes in the first term and it it's been over over the uh the uh Biden presidency and during the first year plus of Trump's presidency. People have just seen it more in in public. I I don't I don't know what uh what psychiatrists would say about it. I I don't think it's that important really.

[00:22:03]I think it's what people see that he just cannot keep a train of thought going because he's constantly diverted by other things and he always comes back to what after all we know what is the most important thing in life it's Donald Trump >> so it's more it's more his personality ambassador >> yeah he's unleashed now >> um a bizarre story I want to get your thoughts on this is this development on the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool uh it needs to be drained just three weeks after receiving a 14 to 15 million ion dollar uh makeover because there's this algae growth, there's this peeling paint. Uh it needs to be done before the July 4 celebration. So Trump is standing by his claim that vandals had wrecked the newly renovated uh reflecting pool reporters have repeatedly uh pressed him for evidence uh on this as to why more money needs to be spent on this. But this was a maintenance issue. It's now turned into a story of sabotage and arrest. What do you make of this?

[00:23:00]>> Well, it's it's really Trump and microcosm. I mean, he's a big real estate developer. Nobody's better than he is. He can solve all the world's problems. So, he takes on the the reflecting pool uh and uh and issues a no bid contract to a friend of his or a friend of a friend of his and it doesn't work out. So, is it his fault? Of course not. Vandals have been pro prowling around Washington carving up the the coating of the reflecting pool. Well, all right. If he's got evidence, let's see it. I I don't think there is. But I do have this to say. The more time that Donald Trump spends on the issue of the reflecting pool, the better off America is.

[00:23:37]>> Ambassador John Bolton, thank you so much for joining the Trump Report today.

[00:23:40]>> Glad to be with you.