JUDY WOODRUFF: The revolving door at the Trump White House has turned again.
This time, it ushered in President Trump's third national security adviser in 14 months,
the latest addition to a hawkish new lineup.
The president left the White House late this afternoon for a weekend in Florida, with nothing
more to say about the latest shakeup in his national security team.
As of April 9, H.R. McMaster is out as national security adviser.
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton is in.
JOHN BOLTON, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations: It's always an honor to serve
our country, and I think particularly in these times internationally, it's a particular honor.
So I'm still sort of getting used to it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Bolton becomes the third person in the post since President Trump took office.
The first choice, Michael Flynn, resigned just over three weeks after the inauguration
over revelations that he had lied about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
Army Lieutenant General McMaster took over, but clashed with the president, who reportedly
complained about being lectured to in lengthy briefings.
McMaster even drew a public presidential rebuke last month, after he said there was incontrovertible
proof that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Still, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders insisted only a week ago that he wasn't going
anywhere.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, White House Press Secretary: General McMaster is a dedicated
public servant, and he is here, not focused on the news stories that many of you are writing,
but on some really big issues, things like North Korea, things like Russia, things like
Iran.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Then came Thursday evening's presidential tweet announcing McMaster's ouster.
In it, Mr. Trump said the general -- quote -- "has done an outstanding job and will always
remain my friend."
McMaster, in turn, issued a statement saying he now plans to retire from the Army, and
thanking the president for the opportunity to serve.
His successor is a longtime hawk on foreign policy who has served Republican presidents
since Ronald Reagan, and has held President Trump's ear as a commentator on FOX News.
John Bolton was undersecretary of state for arms control under President George W. Bush,
and advocated for the invasion of Iraq.
He later served as ambassador to the United Nations, but only temporarily, as the Senate
fused to confirm his nomination.
More recently, he has argued for preemptive strikes against North Korea.
JOHN BOLTON: More diplomacy with North Korea, more sanctions, whether against North Korea,
or an effort to apply sanctions against China, is just giving North Korea more time to increase
its nuclear arsenal.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Bolton also called for bombing Iran back in 2015, when the Obama administration
was negotiating the nuclear agreement.
Since then, he has echoed Mr. Trump's desire to tear up the nuclear deal.
JOHN BOLTON: I think the deal is inherently flawed.
I think it's a strategic debacle for the United States.
You can always tinker around the edges.
The question is whether putting lipstick on a pig is really going to make a difference
here.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In addition, Bolton has at times shared the president's skepticism about
whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election.
He once suggested the hack of e-mails at the Democratic National Committee might have been
staged, not by the Russians, but by the Obama administration.
JOHN BOLTON: It's not at all clear to me, just viewing this from the outside, that this
hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers wasn't a false flag operation.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Bolton later walked back those comments, and has often been a vocal critic
of Russia.
but he also appeared in a 2013 video for a Russian pro-gun group supported by the NRA.
On economic policy, he applauded the president's imposition of new tariffs on China.
His arrival comes just days after the president fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and
named the more conservative CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him.
In addition, the president's chief economic adviser and communications director announced
this month that they are leaving the White House.
For more on John Bolton's career and his views, I'm joined now by Jonathan Landay of Reuters.
He covered Bolton's tenure at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration and
the run-up to the Iraq War.
Jonathan Landay, thank you for being with us.
So tell us more about, who is John Bolton?
JONATHAN LANDAY, Reuters: John Bolton is a hawk.
He espouses pretty belligerent views, and he has a history of being at odds with the
U.S. intelligence community, which exists to this day, where he has written about a
significant violations by Iran in the Iran nuclear deal, whereas the man he's going to
be working with, the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, last month cold Congress
that Iran is abiding by the deal and the deal in fact is working.
Mr. Bolton had several clashes over U.S. intelligence where he was found to be exaggerating this
intelligence, one of the incidents back in 2002, where he made a speech about Cuba having
what he said was developing an offensive biological warfare program, was disputed by two U.S.
intelligence analysts, one at the State Department, one at the CIA.
Both men and their bosses say that Mr. Bolton tried to have them fired because of their
arguments with him over the intelligence -- his interpretation of the intelligence.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How did his relationship with the intelligence community affect the role
that he played in the run-up to the invasion, the war in Iraq?
JONATHAN LANDAY: Well, Mr. Bolton was a major proponent of the invasion of Iraq for -- because,
you know -- supporting the Bush administration's contention that the late dictator Saddam Hussein
had weapons of mass destruction.
That case was based on bogus and exaggerated intelligence, something I did extensive reporting
with my reporting partner, Warren Strobel.
But Mr. Bolton supported that case.
And at one point, when he was up for being confirmed, his confirmation hearings, as U.N.
ambassador, which he was never confirmed for, he was -- I believe there was a written questionnaire
where he was asked if he had ever been investigated while at the State Department.
He said no, but it later emerged that, in fact, he was questioned by the State Department's
inspector general's office about the sources of intelligence that the Bush administration
used for its case to invade Iraq.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Two other quick things I want to ask you, Jonathan Landay.
One has to do with arms control.
How has he dealt with arms control issues?
We know that could well be an issue in the next year or so.
JONATHAN LANDAY: Absolutely.
Mr. Bolton has been a fairly strident opponent of many arms control agreements.
And, in particular, while he worked in the Bush administration as the top arms control
official at the State Department, he was one of the people who honchoed the Bush administration,
the United States' withdrawal of the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The last thing I want to ask is about what happened 10 years ago when he
-- George W. Bush nominated him to be the ambassador of the U.N.
Very unusual, the Republican majority, Foreign Affairs Committee, Foreign Relations Committee,
in the Senate refused to confirm him, and there were a number -- there was a lot of
testimony about John Bolton.
Just in a nutshell, what happened?
JONATHAN LANDAY: Well, there was a lot -- some of these cases that I just brought up came
up.
There was also allegations that he went after a former USAID contractor, a woman, at a hotel
in Moscow in terms of harassing her over a dispute, a business dispute, while he was
out of U.S. government.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You don't mean a sexual harassment...
(CROSSTALK)
JONATHAN LANDAY: No, no, not at all.
It was a contractual dispute.
The committee sent the nomination to the Senate floor, and he wasn't confirmed.
He was put in the U.N. ambassador's job in what's known as a recess appointment.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, Jonathan Landay, a lot to learn, and thank you very much for
talking to us.
JONATHAN LANDAY: My pleasure.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.
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