Boizhe Moi!
There’s a LOT in this book, which comes out Tuesday, 9/15. Woodward conducted 18 interviews with Trump, and CNN has obtained copies of some of the audio tapes, which you can listen to above. THREAD on the key highlights in Rage, w/ @jamiegangel @elizabethstuart:
— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) September 9, 2020
From CNN (emphasis mine):
President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book “Rage.”
This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward on February 7.
In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. “Pretty amazing,” Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times “more deadly” than the flu.
Trump’s admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was “going to disappear” and “all work out fine.”
The book, using Trump’s own words, depicts a President who has betrayed the public trust and the most fundamental responsibilities of his office. In “Rage,” Trump says the job of a president is “to keep our country safe.” But in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.
“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
Woodward reveals new details on the early warnings Trump received — and often ignored.
In a January 28 top secret intelligence briefing, national security adviser Robert O’Brien gave Trump a “jarring” warning about the virus, telling the President it would be the “biggest national security threat” of his presidency. Trump’s head “popped up,” Woodward writes.
O’Brien’s deputy, Matt Pottinger, concurred, telling Trump it could be as bad as the influenza pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 Americans. Pottinger warned Trump that asymptomatic spread was occurring in China: He had been told 50% of those infected showed no symptoms.
Asked by Woodward in May if he remembered O’Brien’s January 28 warning that the virus would be the biggest national security threat of his presidency, Trump equivocated. “No, I don’t.” Trump said. “I’m sure if he said it — you know, I’m sure he said it. Nice guy.”
He also disclosed a clandestine and highly classified new nuclear weapons program* to Woodward on tape!
Woodward reports on Trump’s tensions with military leaders, writing a Mattis aide heard Trump say in a meeting, "my f—ing generals are a bunch of pussies" because they cared more about alliances than trade deals. Mattis asked the aide to document the comment in an email.
— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) September 9, 2020
And, of course, we’ve got further confirmation of Jeffrey Goldberg’s reporting from last Friday too!
Both Secretary Mattis and DNI Coats had serious, significant concerns about the President, his abilities, and his allegiance! (emphasis mine)
Mattis is quoted as calling Trump “dangerous” and “unfit” to be commander in chief. Woodward writes that Coats “continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump.” Woodward continues, writing that Coats felt, “How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation.”
Woodward also has assessments of the President from Dr. Fauci:
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration’s top infectious disease expert, is quoted telling others Trump’s leadership was “rudderless” and that his “attention span is like a minus number.”
“His sole purpose is to get reelected,” Fauci told an associate, according to Woodward.
Woodward was also able to get his hands on the love letters, or, at least, copies of the love letters between the President and Kim Jong Un.
Woodward obtained the 27 LETTERS Trump and Kim Jong Un exchanged in 2018 and 2019. Kim flatters Trump by repeatedly, calling him "Your Excellency," and writes in one letter that meeting again would be "reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film."
— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) September 9, 2020
As many of you know, I’m generally not a big fan of Bob Woodward’s books. He never cites sources and many of us in the nat-sec world that have had to refer to his books in our professional work have speculated that his modus operandi is that if you refuse to talk to him on or off the record, that he’ll just make stuff up to fit and support the narrative he’s creating. In this case, however, he has tapes. 18 hours of tapes of the President from interviews the President chose to sit for. And tapes, which the President in his own, charming fashion, will spend the next two months loudly, repeatedly, and often incoherently, but definitely angrily denying are actually of him. He’ll tell anyone and everyone who’ll listen or give him air time that he doesn’t think that’s actually him on the tapes. Just as he’s done with the Access Hollywood tape.
I expect that between The Lincoln Project, VoteVets, Don Winslow, and several other groups, as well as the Biden campaign, will have all of this teed up and ready to go in advertisement over the next two months. Including, if they can get permission to use them, the audio from Woodward’s tapes of the President.
ETA: Audio at the CNN link.
Open thread!
* Would one of our New Mexican readers please do a welfare check on Cheryl? Thanks, The Management…