Bob Woodward’s voice is well known in Washington, and former President Trump’s voice is well known around the world. But Woodward’s new audiobook lets you listen to both in a new way. playing card tape.
Woodward has released live audio of a number of interviews he conducted with Trump in 2019 and 2020. In response, Trump told Fox News that he planned to sue Woodward (who called it “extremely despicable”) because of him, not because the tape was inaccurate. He says he owns them and needs compensation for the sale.
The interview was designed to inform Woodward’s second book on Trump’s presidency. anger, It was announced just before Trump lost his re-election bid. The president did not cooperate with the reporter’s previous Trump book. fear, A highly critical study published in 2018.
The series, which first took place in the Oval Office, continued for several months, with Trump making frequent out-of-the-box calls to Mr. Woodward from his home or cell phone.
In these hours of recorded audio of Trump, we see him trying to please Woodward, praising him as the “great historian” and the “great Bob Woodward.” I heard that However, these interviews often lead to disagreements and arguments.
One of the central topics of discussion is the novel coronavirus, which became a hot topic during the election year. In February 2020, President Trump told Woodward that all was well in America, but that “it’s a little bit of a setback with the Chinese virus right now,” but that it would “fix in a few months with the heat.”
Then, as Mr. Woodward enumerated all the evidence to the contrary, Mr. Trump persisted in insisting that he had “somehow managed.”
I heard that President Trump repeatedly told Mr. Woodward that he was the only voice calling on the United States to ban people from China in early 2020. He said he did so in defiance of one of his advisers, who rejected the idea.
Mr. Woodward returned with notes for nearly everyone in the room, all of whom, at least four or five others (including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s chief epidemiologist), were the same. He said he called for the same closure at a meeting. Mr Trump has repeatedly denied this, claiming he was “alone” and bringing up the story regularly as if Mr Woodward had never heard of it.
President Trump has said that “great things will never be recognized” for what he is doing, adding: “I didn’t want people to panic and let people know how horrible and deadly the new coronavirus is. I didn’t want it,” he added on March 19.
Woodward’s voice can be heard asking questions throughout the recording. He also recorded commentary so you can hear him fact-checking and correcting the president.
President Trump seems fully aware that Mr. Woodward is more than just a reporter. He may even have been briefed on a reporter’s career built on books about presidents, starting with the first president. Ladies and gentlemen of the President, It details his contribution to the downfall of Richard Nixon nearly half a century ago.
Since then, presidents have talked to Mr. Woodward and told their side of the story.that even over the years washington post Journalists obsessively interview all the other key figures in each administration for candor and informality.
But Mr. Trump may have been surprised when Mr. Woodward returned to criticize the coronavirus response with such enthusiasm. Woodward’s role here shifts from reporter to debater, notably in an April 5, 2020 interview where he shared a list of ’16 things’ Trump thinks are needed to combat the virus. bottom. After the call ends, Mr. Woodward’s wife, journalist Elsa Walsh, can be heard questioning aloud whether she should speak to the president that way.
Listening to these tapes now, the topic is as familiar as President Trump’s raspy baritone (which at times turned belligerent and nearly yelled). In effect, Mr. Trump sticks to a variety of topics, from his own grievances to his thoughts on his own biggest hits. The complaint features the “extremely unfair” treatment of him by the Democrats, RINO (the titular Republican), the “dishonest media” and the federal government, also known as “Deep State” and “The Swamp”. and
We also hear an unrepentant Trump boast about how Congress blocked sanctions against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi. to Washington Post He severely criticized the prince. “I saved his butt, but it wasn’t easy,” Trump said.
President Trump’s rhetoric has not changed since he emerged as a candidate in 2015, and his messages on Truth Social are steeped in his ongoing victimhood. The main difference is that his frequent profanity is left intact here.
Among the achievements he would like Woodward to highlight is a commission he made to the judiciary based on a list compiled by the Federalist Society and promoted by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. It also includes appointments. That number grew with each interview, with Mr Trump claiming it ended up at 280, and Mr Woodward ending up with a still impressive 234, he added in a note.
But Trump has also claimed credit for a strong pre-coronavirus economy and a record stock market, saying that if his rival Hillary Clinton had won the Electoral College in 2016, he would have won North Korea. escape from nuclear war was inevitable.
President Trump has gone to great lengths to convince Woodward of his “breakthrough” with the young and curious North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un. President Trump can’t contain his interest in how Kim got rid of rivals to the dictatorship, including beheading his uncle. Trump has offered to share Mr. Kim’s letter (classified information) with Mr. Woodward, but he has asked not to reveal how he obtained it.
President Trump is also leaning in outrage over the “Russia hoax” and allegations of an FBI conspiracy to arrest him, as well as his first impeachment. (The latter followed a delay in military aid to Ukraine while calling for the country to launch or announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter.)
Perhaps the most repeated mantra of several Trump presidents is “I’ve done more than any other president in less than three years.” It’s been three and a half years). This refrain is repeated regularly, sometimes over and over in one of his conversations, demonstrating President Trump’s reliance on repetition for effectiveness throughout his career.
Trump also goes in surprising directions, alluding to Abraham Lincoln when he says, “I have done more for black people than any other president but the great Prime Minister Abe.” When Woodward brought up Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and founded the Great Society Program, Trump responded, “No, I did more.”
Occasionally, I hear voices other than the two principals. Woodward interviewed former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien and O’Brien’s deputy Matthew Pottinger. Both have acknowledged warning Trump that a virus from China would be the “greatest national security threat he will face during his presidency.”
First Lady Melania Trump, daughter Ivanka, and husband Jared Kushner also spoke briefly. In the background, you can also hear South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, who appeared while Trump was talking to Woodward. President Trump calls senators “Lins.”
Questions will surely be asked about Woodward’s motives for producing this audiobook. On one level, he’s just repeating a claim he made a year ago about Trump’s suitability for presidency. He states in the prologue that reading what someone said is not as powerful as hearing it in their own voice. (This is what NPR and other voice-based communicators have been doing for years.)
There is no doubt that listening to President Trump has an impact that reading alone cannot match. In the epilogue, Woodward said, “The real Trump is throbbing in my ears that the printed page can’t capture.”
It’s also possible Woodward is here responding to critics who criticize his and other Trump chroniclers’ work. At least some reporters who have written books about Trump have been accused of withholding key newsworthy information, keeping it secret and fresh for the sake of the book. Woodward shows in his own way how difficult it is to do journalism and history at the same time.
He also asked Trump to reflect on his place in history and the premonitions of his presidency. He wants President Trump to comment on what historian Barbara Touchman wrote about Europe in 1914, just before World War I. “In the clock of history it was sunset,” Touchman wrote.
Woodward added, “Just over a century later, 2016 and the election of Trump has once again come to an end. The old political order is dying, and now. died,” he added.
President Trump responded by praising his surprising “instinct” to recognize the weaknesses of both major parties and use them to get himself elected. Woodward calls it “grabbing the clock of history.” The idea, he said, had Trump literally jumping in his chair and saying, “Yeah, we’re doing it again in 2020,” seemingly as triumphant as Woodward is concerned.
and morning paper In an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep that aired Monday, Woodward spoke about how “the power of voice” conjures up something disturbing about President Trump. “His voice is so preoccupied with himself and his feelings and his conclusions.”
Mr Woodward said Mr Trump “is not happy with democracy”, later adding that Mr Trump “does not understand democracy”. He returned to Trump’s claim that “everything is mine,” echoing Trump’s claim at the 2016 convention that “only I can solve the problem.”
“It’s so insane you don’t know what to do,” Woodward tells Inkeep. “It’s almost inexplicable. So what do you do as a reporter? You just put it all out there and let people judge.”