Bolton book sells 780,000 copies in first week, set to surpass 1M copies printed

John Bolton’s new memoir about his stint as President Trump’s national security adviser has sold more than 780,000 copies in its first week to top The New York Times and Amazon top-seller lists, with publisher Simon & Schuster set to reach 1 million copies printed.

“The Room Where It Happened” was released earlier this month and details Bolton’s tumultuous 18 months in President Trump’s administration.

Bolton has since been on a nonstop media tour that has included several heated interviews that have captured headlines.

“You’re a national negotiator, how could you be naive?” CBS’s Stephen Colbert asked of Bolton last week. “You’ve dealt with the worst people in the world.”

“You’ve really insulted me now by calling me naive,” Bolton shot back. “Look, I thought it was possible to work with somebody. I thought surely they would want to learn about the complexities of arms control negotiations and that sort of thing, and as I detail in the book, that turned out not to be true.”

In other interviews, Bolton was pressed on why he saved key allegations he could have shared in testimony during Trump’s impeachment trial for the book.

The Trump administration also provided ample free publicity for the book, with the Justice Department unsuccessfully suing Bolton to attempt to halt its release over classified national security concerns.

The lawsuit was tossed, but not before the judge in the case said Bolton “gambled with the national security of the United States” and “exposed his country to harm.”

Bolton was reportedly paid a $2 million advance for the memoir.

“The Room Where It Happened” fell short of former FBI Director James Comey’s “A Higher Loyalty” in terms of sales in its first week, but it still ranks as one of the best-selling books of the Trump era.