Bob Woodward: Trump’s Presidency Is a “Staggering, Monumental Tragedy Across the Board”

Bob Woodward has spoken candidly about his interview with Donald Trump and his view of how the President has handled the Coronavirus. The veteran journalist spoke in tragic terms.

Woodward spoke to MSNBC on Wednesday about his new book Rage, which made headlines for its revelations about Trump’s downplaying of the virus. Woodward said Trump regretted not being interviewed for his earlier book, Fear.

“Trump regretted not talking to me to me for Fear and so he agreed to do this, and it was one of the most, one of the strangest experiences of my life,” Woodward said.

He explained that “a couple of times we really got in shouting matches, particularly about impeachment and about what my reporting showed on the virus and how he needed to mobilize the country and kind of treat it like a Manhattan project, when they built the first atomic bomb during World War II and he would say ‘Yes,’ and he then he would go out and play it down, zigzag all the time.”

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Woodward spoke about a phone call he had with Trump in August where the President “said nothing more could be done. Nothing more could have been done.”

“And that just is shockingly untrue and he failed himself, he failed the country, he failed the Republican Party, he failed the concept of the office of the president,” he said.

“I take an ice cube before I talk, I tried to cool down and not be emotional. In this case, you put it together and it is a staggering, monumental tragedy across the board,” Woodward said.

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Darragh Roche

Darragh Roche is a journalist covering U.S. politics and media