In back-to-back John F. Kennedy Jr. Forums at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Institute of Politics (IOP) focused on the future of national security and conservatism in America with two prominent Republican voices: John Bolton and Mike Pence.
Both men served with President Trump in his first administration. Bolton was appointed national security advisor. Pence served as Trump’s vice-president. Now, Bolton is currently under legal threat of retribution from the Trump administration for his highly critical book “The Room Where It Happened.” And Pence, who ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2023—“You may have heard about it,” he quipped—left politics to join the George Mason University Schar School of Public Policy as a distinguished professor of practice.
And yet both see promise for a better America because of the resiliency and conviction of the American people.
Below are excerpts from the two Forums. Bolton was in conversation with former deputy to the U.S. representative to the United Nations and 2025 IOP Fellow Ned Price. Pence was joined by Archon Fung, the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government and director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
“I haven’t gotten any less conservative watching Trump in office this time.”
John Bolton on the home raids and investigation into his book
I’m confident that there’s nothing in my book that’s classified. That’s why there was a pre-publication review.
President Trump back in 2020 made his views known, as he frequently does, saying, “Well, there’s a lot of classified material in the book,” and he said this publicly and it’s in the press. He said it be OK if it was published after the election, but not before the election.
On the United Nations
The central problem is that the U.N.’s main political decision-making bodies, the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, are hopelessly broken. But there are pieces of the U.N. system that stick to their mandates and avoid politicization—the International Telecommunications Union, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Maritime Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency —who do good and important work. So, I am not saying the U.S. should step back from the U.N. We should pay for what we want (from the U.N.) and expect that we get what we pay for and encourage other countries to do the same.
On the China-Russia alliance
I see a growing China-Russia axis forming that reminds us of the Sino-Soviet alliance of the Cold War (created in the 1950s between the People’s Republic of China and the USSR) except this time it’s China who is the dominant partner and Russia the subordinate. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have declared a partnership without limits that doesn’t have a good sound to it. I think the main threat is China, and Russia is potentially one of the victims.
On serving with Trump
I met Trump well before the 2016 election. When he took office and asked me to join, I believed that like every one of his predecessors, the weight of his responsibilities, certainly in the national security space, would discipline his thinking. I realized fairly soon that I was wrong. Nothing would discipline his thinking.
On America’s future
I think it is important to understand that Trump is an aberration in American politics. There has never been anything like this before and hopefully never will again.
I haven’t gotten any less conservative watching Trump in office this time. I think the central difference in terms of staffing in the administration between the first term and the second term is that this time he consciously looked for yes men and yes women.
The task of the national security advisor is to make sure the president has all the pertinent information he needs to make decisions. Obviously, the president makes the final decision, but I pushed back all the time. I lasted 17 months and say to this day that I remain his longest serving national security advisor.
“I have great confidence in the American people. I know people love our Constitution and they will hold elected officials at every level to that standard.”
Mike Pence on Christianity in politics
I had always thought of religion as a group thing you were a part of. I never thought of it as personal to me. When I personally put my faith in Jesus Christ, my life changed forever.
Our nation was founded on the belief that we were endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. That was a history-splitting idea: that the most powerful sovereign on earth said rights don’t come from you; they don’t come from legislatures; they come from God. Not every American has to ascribe to that view, but America ascribes to that view.
On conservatism
This is an important debate within the ranks of people that ever voted Republican. Our administration (the first Trump administration) embraced America’s role as the leader of the free world. We stood with our allies, stood up to our enemies. We rebuilt our military, cut taxes, rolled back regulation and negotiated the largest trade deals in American history.
What drew me to my brief campaign back in 2023 was that I saw my old running mate, and many in our party, departing from those core ideals and principles.
They [Trump’s politics] have changed the party agenda, but not the Republican Party.
On upholding democracy
On January 7, 2017, I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It’s a promise I made, ending with a prayer: so help me God. I’ll always believe we did our duty on that day [January 6, 2021] to see the peaceful transfer of power under the Constitution of the United States.
But I do believe it was a day of tragedy. A day of tragedy that became a triumph of freedom. As the world watched, our Congress reconvened the very same day and completed our work. I think they saw the resilience of our institution, the strength of our institutions.
I have confidence in the days ahead that Republicans and Democrats will hew to those roots and that duty.
And I have great confidence in the American people. I know people love our Constitution and they will hold elected officials at every level to that standard.
Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility, that when we’re civil to one another, even when we disagree, we have the opportunity to find a common cause. We can actually work together and advance the country.
Mike Pence at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.
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Event photos by Martha Stewart; banner image by Jen Golbeck / SOPA Images/Sipa USA