Trump decisions in office usually driven by self-interest, John Bolton says in upcoming book

Former White House national security adviser John Bolton has written a book that provides an insider account of President Donald Trump's "inconsistent, scattershot decision-making process," his publisher said on Friday.

Bolton's The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, is to be published on June 23 over the objections of the White House, which has been quarreling with Bolton's representatives over whether some parts of his account reveal classified information.

Bolton left the White House last September amid simmering differences on a wide array of foreign policy challenges. The two men have differed on whether he was fired or resigned.

The publisher, Simon and Schuster, said in a news release that Bolton's book details Trump's dealings with China, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, Iran, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

"This is the book Donald Trump doesn't want you to read," the publisher said.

"What Bolton saw astonished him: a president for whom getting re-elected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation," it added.

"I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn't driven by re-election calculations," Bolton writes in the book, according to the publisher.

Trump fires John Bolton as his national security adviser

5 years ago

Duration 2:28

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday via Twitter that he had fired national security adviser John Bolton and will name a replacement next week. Bolton lasted 17 months on the job, longer than any other.

Bolton served as Trump's third national security adviser for a total of 519 days. A meticulous notetaker, Bolton was in the room for a number of key foreign policy meetings.

Bolton argues that the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives should have expanded its impeachment probe against Trump last year to beyond questions over whether Trump invited foreign interference from Ukraine.

He called their strategy "impeachment malpractice," a description he's used in speeches since February.

"Trump's Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the administration to raise alarms about them," the publisher said.

Unlike other Republican presidencies

At least one representative in Congress was unimpressed by the preview.

"John Bolton is an example of a purported public servant who not only put party over country, he put his own profits over country. Despicable," said California Democrat Ted Lieu.

Democrats were eager to see Bolton testify during Trump's impeachment proceedings, but he did not.

WATCH l From September2019: Bolton out as national security adviser:

Before agreeing to join the Trump administration as national security adviser after Michael Flynn and H.R. McMaster Bolton served in a variety of capacities in the administrations of Republican presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

"The differences between this presidency and previous ones I had served were stunning," Bolton writes in the book.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.