The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward Talks about Trump’s Experiment with the Washington Dilaton and the Covid Virus

In “The Trump Tapes” audiobook, which includes more than eight hours of Bob Woodward’s raw interviews with Donald Trump, the former President reveals classified information about weapon systems, which Woodward was never able to verify. CNN’s Jamie Gangel has the latest.

It is also possible that Woodward is responding here to critics who have faulted his work and that of other Trump chroniclers. At least some reporters who have written books about Trump have been accused of withholding newsworthy nuggets, keeping them secret and fresh for their books. Woodward is showing in his own way how difficult it is to do journalism and historiography at the same time.

After it was done in the Oval Office, the series continued for months with Trump making surprise phone calls to Woodward at home or on his cellphone.

The Covid virus that dominated the election year has come to dominate the discussion. Trump tells Woodward that everything is fine in America, but that there is a setback with China that will go away in a couple of months.

Woodward came back with notes from everyone else in that room saying that at least four or five others had called for the same shutdown. The President insists he is alone and brings up the subject regularly as though Woodward has never heard it before.

It’s March 19 when Trump says he’ll “never get credit for the great stuff” he’s doing and adding that he did not want people to know how bad and deadly Covid could be because he did not want to “panic the people.”

What do we know about Donald Trump and the judiciary? The truth about Trump’s grievances and his “saved ass”

Woodward’s voice asks questions throughout the recordings. He has also recorded a commentary, so we hear him fact-checking and correcting the president.

Listening to these tapes now, the topics are as familiar as Trump’s raspy baritone (which grows bellicose at times and verges on a bellow). On substance, Trump dwells on an agenda that ranges from his grievances to his notions of his greatest hits. The grievances feature his “very unfair” treatment by Democrats, RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), the “dishonest media” and the federal establishment — also known as “the Deep State” and “The Swamp.”

We also hear an unrepentant Trump bragging about how he kept Congress from sanctioning the Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman over the murder of Saudi Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post who was sharply critical of the prince. “I saved his ass,” Trump says, “and it wasn’t easy.”

Even though he’s not a candidate anymore, Trump continues to deliver a sense of victimhood in his message on “Truth Social.” The main difference is that here his frequent profanities are left intact.

Among the achievements he wants Woodward to emphasize are the judicial appointments he made from a list compiled by the Federalist Society and promoted by Mitch McConnell, who was then the Senate Majority Leader. This number grows with each interview, with Trump eventually claiming it was 280 and Woodward adding a note to say it was, in the end, a still impressive 234.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/23/1130712231/the-trump-tapes-reveal-much-about-bob-woodward-donald-trump

The Remarks of Donald Trump: Barack Obama, Lyndon Johnson, and the Kennedy Analog to “Linds” Woodward

Trump claims that a nuclear war with North Korea would have been avoided, if Hillary Clinton had won the Electoral College.

The “Russia hoax”, the FBI’s plot to get him, and his first impeachment are all areas of resentment for Trump. He delayed military aid to Ukraine because he wanted that country to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Perhaps the most repeated of several Trump mantras is “I’ve done more than any other president in less than three years” (which becomes three-and-a-half years as the interviews and months roll by). That refrain reappears regularly, sometimes several times in a single conversation, demonstrating Trump’s career-long reliance on repetition for effect.

It also extends in surprising directions, as when he says: “I have done more for Black people than any president before or after Abe.” Lyndon Johnson, the man who signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and created the Great Society programs, is not the only one who Trump has done more for.

We heard from First Lady and daughter, and also from her husband. South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham is audible in the background as Trump chats with journalist Bob Woodward. Trump calls the senator “Linds.”

Reading alone could not match the impact hearing Trump can have. The printed page doesn’t capture what the real Trump is like, which is “pounding in my ears,” as Woodward says in his epilogue.

He is also asking Trump to be reflective about his place in history and the portents of his presidency. He tries to get Trump to comment on something historian Barbara Tuchman wrote about Europe in 1914, just before the First World War. “On history’s clock it was sunset,” Tuchman wrote.

After a century, the year 2016 and the election of Trump as president turned out to be another sunset. The old political order was dying and is now dead.”

Woodward says Trump “is not comfortable with democracy,” adding later that Trump “does not understand democracy.” He returns to Trump’s assertion that “Everything is mine,” an echo of his 2016 convention claim that “Only I can fix it.”

Woodward said that he didn’t know what to do with it. It’s almost inexplicable. So what do you as a reporter? You just put it all out there and let the people decide.”

Paramount, SSI, and Woodward deviated from industry standard practices, did not get the necessary releases and manipulated the recordings to benefit Woodward’s desired narrative while peddling the story that the recordings are “raw.”

The lawsuit accuses those involved with manipulating audio of deliberately omitting parts of Trump’s answers. It was described by Trump in a series of Truth Social posts as an open and blatant attempt to make him look bad.

A paperback and electronic book have been published of the book. The lawsuit claims more than $49 million, not including attorneys’ fees, based on the price of each audiobook.

Woodward and Simon & Schuster have responded with a joint statement calling the lawsuit “without merit” and promising to “aggressively defend against it.”

“All these interviews were on the record and recorded with President Trump’s knowledge and agreement,” reads the statement provided to NPR. It is important that the historians have a copy of this historical record in their possession. We are confident that the facts and the law are in our favor.”

That was one of two lawsuits Trump withdrew after he and his attorney were fined nearly $1 million for bringing a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and other political rivals.

The Associated Press reported that the District Judge accused Trump of abusing the courts by filing frivolous lawsuits for political reasons, which amounts to obstruction of justice.

Among them: A federal judge ruled earlier this month that writer E. Jean Carroll can proceed with rape and defamation claims against Trump and a New York court ordered two companies owned by the former president to pay $1.61 million in fines and penalties for tax fraud.

Meanwhile, a grand jury in Manhattan is hearing evidence this week about whether Trump committed crimes over hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016.