Acting
Nov 19, 1948
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
John Bolton
Acting
Biography
John Robert Bolton II (born November 20, 1948) is an American attorney, diplomat, Republican consultant, and political commentator who served as the 25th United States ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006, and as the 26th United States national security advisor from 2018 to 2019. Bolton served as a United States assistant attorney general for President Ronald Reagan from 1985 to 1989. He served in the State Department as the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs from 1989 to 1993, and the under secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs from 2001 to 2005. He was an advocate of the Iraq War as a Director of the Project for the New American Century, which favored going to war with Iraq. He was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006, as a recess appointee by President George W. Bush. He stepped down at the end of his recess appointment in December 2006 because he was unlikely to win confirmation in the Senate, of which the Democratic Party had control at the time. Bolton later served as National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump from April 2018 to September 2019. He repeatedly called for the termination of the Iran nuclear deal, from which the U.S. withdrew in May 2018. He wrote a best-selling book about his tenure in the Trump administration, The Room Where It Happened, published in 2020. Bolton is widely considered a foreign policy hawk and advocates military action and regime change by the U.S. in Iran, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen, and North Korea. A member of the Republican Party, his political views have been described as American nationalist, conservative, and neoconservative, although Bolton rejects the last term. He is a former senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and a Fox News Channel commentator. He was a foreign policy adviser to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. In October 2025, Bolton was indicted on eight counts of unlawful transmission and ten counts of unlawful retention of national defense information between 2018 and 2025. Description above from the Wikipedia article John Bolton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Feature Films (26)
FRONTLINE investigates Russian President Vladimir Putin’s clashes with multiple American presidents as he’s tried to rebuild the Russian empire. Veteran filmmaker Michael Kirk (Putin’s Revenge, Putin’s Road to War) and his team trace the miscalculations and missteps of U.S. presidents over five administrations, culminating in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Putin and the Presidents
Trump's Last Stand. On 6 January supporters of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol. Trump's extraordinary presidency is explored through the events of that infamous day.
Capitol Riots Trump's Last stand
A journey through Kim Jong Un’s past and present to understand the man and the myth who holds North Korea’s uncertain future in his hands.
North Korea: Inside The Mind of a Dictator
As the war between Russia and Ukraine rages, this George Stephanopoulos documentary pulls back the curtain on the rise of the two men at the center of the conflict – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Two Men at War
As Vladimir Putin continues his gritty reboot of the Soviet Union, he's getting a surprising amount of help from the party once led by Reagan. In this new special, "Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Moscow Tools," Klepper speaks to foreign affairs experts, possible Russian assets, and the Prime Minister of Russia's neighbor, Estonia, to find out whether Republicans have become the Kremlin's most useful idiots.
Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Moscow Tools
Television & Series (15)
After one of the most shocking presidencies in history, Donald Trump's top advisers and the leaders who clashed with him lift the lid on the critical moments of his foreign policy.
Trump Takes On the World
Since it began in 1983, Frontline has been airing public-affairs documentaries that explore a wide scope of the complex human experience. Frontline's goal is to extend the impact of the documentary beyond its initial broadcast by serving as a catalyst for change.
Frontline
America's popular television News magazine in which an ever changing team of CBS News correspondents contribute segments ranging from hard news coverage to politics to lifestyle and pop culture.
60 Minutes
Protests, political turmoil, pandemic - the inside story of the extraordinary Trump presidency. Friends and foes tell of his rise from TV star to leader of the free world.
