June 24, 2020

It Took Stephen Colbert to Finally Do the Interview John Bolton Really Deserves

“How could you be naive?”

Douliery Olivier/Abaca/Zuma

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For the past week, former national security adviser John Bolton has been touting his new tell-all book as an indictment of Donald Trump and of the president’s weak-willed surrender to foreign leaders. But rather than indulging in Bolton’s revelations, comedian Stephen Colbert asked the salient question: Why did he ever trust Trump in the first place?

“What I thought in 2016 was, we at least have to try it out,” Bolton, a notorious foreign policy hawk who advocated for the Iraq War, said in an appearance on The Late Show. “And so I voted for Trump. Having experienced 17 months of working with him, I can’t in good conscience do that again, and that’s why I’m not gonna vote for him, and I’m not gonna vote for Biden.”

“I guess what’s exasperating is there is absolutely nothing that Donald Trump has done that is surprising to me,” Colbert replied. “How did you not know beforehand that he was just callow?”

“Because I couldn’t believe it was that bad,” Bolton said. “And I know other people say they saw it from the beginning—”

“But you’re an international negotiator,” Colbert shot back. “How could you be naive? You’ve dealt with the worst people in the world.”

The full video is a delight, with Colbert even managing to get a laugh out of Bolton. Watch it below:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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