An Evening with Bob Woodward | JCCSF

[Applause] thank Thank You Marci mr. Woodward welcome to San Francisco thank you is this your first time here for on this book book tour on this tour I've been to San Francisco many times many times yeah never enough so I want to start off with um this book it shattered first week sales records at Simon & Schuster as Marci said you've written 19 of these books were you surprised by the commercial success right off the bat no it's really not about the book or me it's about Trump and Trump is a magnet for because people I mean just talking with people here earlier at a reception they are electrified perplexed and distressed and yeah fearful and I mean the title of the book fear came from Trump and three years ago young reporter at the post and I were interviewing Trump and we kind of figured well he's not going to be elected president so we'll ask serious questions and take the high road so we talked about power because that's what the presidency is really about and Obama had said he was president at that time Obama had said well real power is not having to use violence and so whereas Trump what's real power and it was almost a Shakespearean aside like Hamlet turning to the audience and saying this is what's really going on and this is what I think and Trump said real power is I don't even like to use the term but real power is fear if you do as I was able to do two years of reporting that's his way of operating he scares the bejesus out of everyone and the closer they are to him the more distress they have about the way he's conducting the presidency and his policymaking process which you know in a way doesn't exist because his idea of policymaking is can I ask the audience if you can ask as many people have a to-do list you know were you okay two years of work Trump does not have it to-do list no if it's all impulse it's all the moment it's what's on television and so the tragedy is if you think about this presidents can do really great things for this country they have over the centuries and this is a time of a kind of peace and the kind of economic prosperity and good things could be done but with Trump it's it and so the book opens with Gary Cohen the economic adviser to Trump Cohen had been the very successful president of Goldman Sachs and he lifts a paper off trumps desk because he realizes Trump is ordering the withdrawal from the South Korean trade agreement which will trigger potentially an unraveling of the relationship and the very top secret program to detect North Korean missile launches and Cohen was traumatized and just you know I'm gonna take it off his desk of course Trump didn't notice and it would be really interesting if you could have the time-lapse camera in the Oval Office of what the pines doing yes there might be one that's right Nixon never thought of that and you know what comes on his desk what gets signed what disappears because this is a routine policy now the the paper I referred to when the book came out Trump denied said Oh Gary Cohen would never do that if he did I'd fire him in the book I print the document that was lifted from the desk and the folder that Cohen put it in of course that is replicated in the book on page nine and Trump did not get that far in the book you know that that that part that it's a prologue the the Cohn anecdote is a prologue to the book which then goes back to the campaign and when I was reading it as an editor I thought oh good he led with the good stuff first and then he's going back to the rest of it why why don't you break that out at the beginning as a prologue oh I knew you were gonna read at the book because it's action it was not known it symbolizes the breakdown the nervous breakdown of executive authority and it not only involves Gary Cohen but you're an Kushner Trump's son-in-law and Secretary of Defense mattis who Colin asked to go see Trump and say you can't get out of the South Korea trade agreement because it will be a catastrophe so you have a series of players you have action and I actually had the picture of the memo and the folder and I remember putting it in the book and going hi he can't deny this but of course I'm here yeah yeah so some people have called this book a book end - your first book about Nixon do you think that's a fair characterization and and you you outline you have outlined in the book some differences between what's going on with the Trump administration and and and the over conflation of that with Watergate yeah yeah firstly you have to go back what was Watergate and Watergate was actually an attempt to subvert the process of elect of nominating in electing presidents in 1972 it wasn't just a burglary was dirty tricks wiretapping all kinds of things and there were a series of wars that Nixon conducted against the anti-war movement against the press seventeen wiretaps on white house Nixon White House people or directly on reporters a war on the justice system the cover-up and in the end Nixon's war against history to kind of deny it and it was senator Ervin who ran the Senate Watergate committee who asked the question well why Watergate and he said it was a lust for political power and I think that's absolutely true I think this is the overlap with Trump I think Trump who knows something about lust also must you grimacing okay you wait oh we get to the good stuff but that it is that there is something about Trump and his run for the presidency which has not been fully explained it's almost like he was well known he was a celebrity and so this is the next big thing I think I'll run for president with no concept no real interest in the history of the office and the mechanics of governing and the responsibility of the President and so it was it was again one of his impulses and I think one of the failings in the media that we have and I in particular is understanding the psychology of it for Trump how many people here have been elected president of the United States none not even you by the popular yes right and but Trump has and he did it in defiance of the party and of the odds and the traditions and the political and experience so he got to the White House by himself and I found in their scenes in the book of he's talking about some issue and and cabinet officers will say where did you get that ID said well I've had it for thirty years and if you disagree with me you are wrong and so Trump is there there is something that is doing books about nine presidents I think all presidents are isolated I think Trump the most isolated by far in a very dramatic way and people they've it's what George Kennan the father of the containment strategy in the 1940s called the treacherous curtain of deference that just falls down when people get in the Oval Office and I've had people White House aides in all presidencies came gonna I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna tell the president the truth and then they melt and fade and so and as we know Trump likes praise and so anyone who challenges him is I mean now Kirsten Nielsen the head of Homeland Security is out and you if it's Trump just you know I'm gonna weed out anything that isn't perfect and of course nothing is perfect so if every we talk to people in the wine and say do you think your job is in jeopardy and they burst out laughing because they know their job is in jeopardy always one of the themes in the book that that I got out of it is that he seems to surround himself with these people who are on one hand sick of fant ik and on the other hand they know that what's going on is not normal but they kind of put up with it anyway is that the is that everybody that's working in the administration or is that just the people who are talking to the press well you know I've found people who weren't talking to the press in the detail and what three of time you could hear about things and then find people who had Diaries and documents and so you could land and present an authoritative explanation of how for instance Trump decided to levy steel tariffs I mean did it all on his own it's his chief of staff his economic advisors didn't know and he called in the steel executives early in the morning and then just said were steel tariffs are imposed and as almost all economists will tell you that actually makes no sense that the trade deficits with countries like China and Europe Trump is obsessed with they actually help the American consumer and people have tried to tell him this and he just will not listen so it's it's isolation and it's Reince Priebus who was Trump's first chief of staff didn't last long but I quoted him in the book saying it's not a team of rivals in the Trump White House it's a team of predators and he says there's and then he goes out there's a snake in a hippopotamus and a gorilla and I mean all of these this is the chief of staff that it's not Nancy Pelosi saying that that it's a team of predators it's the person who's supposed to be so the I'm quite frankly more and more alarmed as I get into reporting for a possible second Trump book what the second Trump book wolf will say do you remember the first time you met the president yes it was in the ad of you have met Trump and he had just published his book art of the deal and my colleague at that time Carl Bernstein said oh this we've got to go meet Trump and he'd run into Trump and you know Trump is just he and this is the way he is and he said because this was like in the 90s no the eighties 87 88 or something and Trump said oh you and Woodward have to come up and and talk to me just think of it Bernstein and Woodward and Trump and I and Carl said just wrong that we have to do this and I and I said why and and he said well let's do do it and we taped the interview and I'm embarrassed to say I lost the tape like Nixon and it was just kind of where's the tape was it like a tape recorder yeah and I've offered Doug to people who work for me $1,000 cash reward if they thought maybe you could ask the Russians yeah but what was it like when you finally met him well then yeah I mean he was you know it's art of the deal it's bluster I was saying tonight at the reception I think this bluster and tweeting and his whole public persona is a disguise for what he really is he's a showman he likes the show and he regrettably has too little interest in governing and I you know that's that's the job I from doing nine presidents I've asked myself this question what's the job that the president and my answer is the job of the president is to figure out what the next stage of good is for a majority of people in the country not a base not one party not interest groups but we could put up a board here we say this is the next stage of good these are the things the country needs to do and in two years of work I it never comes up with Trump I mean that's the that's the real tragedy that with all this power and all this focus and I honestly don't think he gets up in the morning and thinks how can I screw up the country or screw things up I think he is just it's all about him and that is dangerous when you get into some of these foreign policy issues and confrontations so let's talk about the molar report it exists now we know it exists we have a summary of it do you think the full thing will ever come out I have a copy of it in my suitcase back here would you like to see it I would like to be able San Francisco Chronicle would you do it what yeah and then suppose there was sensitive stuff in there and you got a call the FBI director said you jeopardizing national security miss Cooper some worry we're asking that you not publish what would you do I think there are probably things in that report that our counterintelligence information that probably yes you stop the presses you know will be no chronicle for five days while we figure out what we can print yeah it's hard yeah and I I think some of the bar for page letter has been misunderstood because it very clearly quotes from Muller's report saying he did not find that the president committed a crime though we did not exonerate him well the not finding a crime that's what the investigation was about and that's if your Trump's lawyer you're celebrating and you're breaking out the champagne and I mean Giuliani sure as you know going through emotions that even he has never gone through and so it's and it's a trauma I don't know did you find people at The Chronicle were shocked that there was this finding in the Muller record no collusion and yeah I think I think there was some surprise and then in retrospect it seems like we shouldn't have been surprised I mean we we don't we don't cover that level of day-to-day Washington stuff were primarily local but I think there was a an expectation that we would have some basic questions answered that a lot of us have and that doesn't seem to be the case yet yes and I it's been reported I think that there's some damaging material but Trump dodged this it seems at this point and you you I think the lot of people are traumatized by the fact because there was an expectation this was gonna do in the Trump presidency I think in my business the media though I think that my newspaper the New York Times Wall Street Journal CNN NBC done a great job covering Trump because you had to cover the firing of Comey and you know all of these things that took place but there is a some people have become emotionally unhinged in our business and I think I think that you need to hand out valium gargles to people to just kind of do you think the media overall has handled the release of the bar report at least well no because there's a lot of people cover it and say well Muller didn't decide the obstruction issue but when Muller said we didn't find a crime you know that Muller's not doing all this work to write a magazine profile it is a criminal investigation and when you find no crime that means you've got to move on but there's no exoneration so hopefully we'll see something in the report you know you you miss the Southern District of New York oh yeah I mean that is a question our our is a lot of this material going to just be used for state charges it could or more importantly and whoever is in the audience I think that was my brother who showed me the Southern District US attorney in New York Muller put lots of cases over to him that those investigations go on in that office in the the US attorney in New York has a real tradition Giuliani had that for and they're they're very aggressive and so I'm not suggesting it's over and but I am suggesting that you be this is the great problem in journalism sometimes you just have to look at the facts and it's hurt it's hard in the this emotional climate Katherine Graham who was the owner publisher of The Washington Post after Nixon resigned sent a private letter to Carl Bernstein and myself in fact she wrote it out by hand on legal yellow state yellow pant and Bernstein got the original and I got a Xerox and it and it it's it said it's a great letter and it was supposed to be private but she published her memoirs you know you can never trust publishers and it said okay now you to you did some of the stories Nixon's gone now don't start thinking too highly of yourselves and let me give you some advice she said said and the advice is beware the demon pomposity and the demon pomposity stalks the halls of the media politicians business you name it and it is an infection that consumes lots of people and I think it I think it's a mistake too often we become him and it looks like I'm a Republican senator I know quite well and I was saying I'm worried about my business the media that were too involved in too judgmental and not empirical enough and he said oh don't worry about your business at all almost everyone has written the media off is just another form of politics that's not good news if we are perceived to be another form of politics that's not our job and we've got to get back in that Lane and that's that entails what's a work I think so you mentioned the reporting of national classified material clearly you must have run into some of that when writing this book are there things they never write off yeah were there things that you decided not to put in the book no I found I was able to publish in some form the lot of classified information and NSC notes National Security Council notes because I think it's really important to deal with these things I think the most to me the most shocking part of it was Trump is on this real he's on the case of oh we're spending all this money and our military alliances NATO and South Korean around the world and he said that one of these meetings which is highly classified he said why are we doing this this makes no sense and we are suckers were paying for Germany's defense we're paying here and there we'd be if we were smart we'd be so rich and this was a meeting in Trump had been president one year wasn't his first week and so Secretary of Defense mattis feels he has to answer and he says mr. president we're doing all of these things to prevent World War three now that the Secretary of Defense has to tell the president that we're doing things like this that really have kept the peace to prevent World War three what's job one of the President to prevent World War three chilling and quite frankly frightening do you think the administration has changed since the Moller report has come out well let's see I mean the molar report hasn't come out we have the come out to the DOJ yeah but it's you know with the you always discover that there's more to the story right yes every time even in this at the San Francisco Chronicle I'm sure after a couple of days of a big story or somebody said I wish we knew that they hadn't right that's why we call it the first draft of history and yeah yes exactly and so you know I think you know my brother had it right in his way of saying this is not over and there's it's hard to be patient don't you find yourself you know impatience and speed the Internet give it to me summarize the news my god don't write a five part series on land use we may have done that once or tightly so yeah so let's talk about the actual way you go about your reporting which is what I'm so fascinated and and I think a lot of people in the general public are really interested now and how investigative reporters do their job you have a note to readers at the beginning of the book that explains the principle of deep background do you want to explain yes it means I interview people on deep background that I'm going and I tape recorded all these interviews with people with their knowledge and it means I can use it but I'm not going to say where it came from and people have guest sources one of the facts is that three of the best sources I had for this book their names never appear in the book and quite frankly is over the last 10 or 12 years I've reexamined my process of reporting and it was the fourth bush book so ten years ago there was a general who wouldn't talk to me four-star general and I sent messages phone messages intermediaries radio silence so I thought I'm going to use the old Watergate technique of going knocking on the door so I found out where he lived now when would you go visit a four-star general without an appointment well I I should say I know how the story ends ok ok so we'll look this qualify yeah ok some people will suggest the morning and I'll say you know stick to your line of work because you don't want it you don't want to interfere with the generals physical training and so it turns out the best time to go is 8 17 at night on a Tuesday because you don't want to go on Monday and you don't want to go at the end of the week and Tuesdays are perfect 8:15 8 17 if the generals home he will have eaten maybe he had a few pops relax those are the extra hours so I go knock on his door and you know can I quote him yeah sure ok he opened the door and he looked at me and he said are you still doing this [Laughter] what you say well if it was sincere and what from lots of CIA reporting with people were CIA case officers they tell you it's important to let the silence suck out the truth it's you just have to learn to be quiet I have a little technique of sticking this finger into my little finger nail so it hurts and it's a memory aid to tell me to shut the F up and listen listening and so I did this and I poker-faced and he looked at me and he's got a disappointed look on his face I think not in me but in himself because he said okay come on in sit for two hours and answer questions now why because somebody showed up we're not showing up I'll bet you find reporters I asked a reporter some time ago well-known recive when you go out for interviews and he said oh no I don't go out for interviews I do I know you must hate it I hate it so much yeah email right you you send the White House a query by email and then for assistant press secretary sit around the computer compose say how can we write two sentences that say nothing and that's what you get you get a bleached out laundered version or you know this telephone sometimes can help and sometimes is necessary you've got to show it takes time to show up and you get lots of nose but when I was working on fear there was a real for me personally an important fork in the road moment it's 11 o'clock at night and I had the home number of somebody in the White House it was key and I've said oh you know should I call him you know 11 o'clock at night that's late and then I and I thought oh well this point I was 74 years old I said go to bed you should go to bed and out of nothing other than momentum I had the number and there's the phone and I dialed and he answered and I said identified myself would like to come talk to you about the Trump White House he said yeah yeah yeah you call the office tomorrow the brush-off and I said well I'm four minutes from your house four minutes from my house how do you know where I live and I said well good research and so he said okay come on by and so it's 1104 I showed up at his door and luck you know luck in anything his wife was out of town and I stayed it wasn't dawn but it was almost dawn and then went and got some sleep came back the next morning and it you've got to get into people's homes you've got to if say if you're the Assistant Secretary of Defense and I come to interview you what are you thinking it would be a four-letter word no I don't want you coming to my house at midnight no no in your office at the Pentagon I'm starting to hurt easy what what what do people what's your what's the reaction okay what are the most potent I call you up and I want to interview you what am I gonna say to you what our potent words in journalism I have a source I have a document oh it's like going to college again posting the the most potent words in journalism are I need your help I need your help because it's true and it immediately you know if you start I got the goods on you I've got the document I've got you know that's that's bad human interaction I think but I need your help is honest and works and so you say okay come on by the Pentagon now I'm going to not just Google you but I'm going to find out a lot about you and I'm gonna have the article you wrote for Defence weekly thirty two years ago and I'm gonna say on page eighteen you say the following and you might think I thought only my mother read that article and it's not a ruse it's something I want to know I want to take you as seriously as you take yourself right you take yourself seriously so you end by showing a genuine interest in who you are and what you think and then what you know maybe you're a backbencher in the White House sitting there taking notes and if it's useful I'll ask to come back and then one week I'll call you at home and say you know we didn't get to meet on Tuesday and 8:17 but can I come by and you may say no you may say yes and what the formula for dealing with Trump people the closer they are the more anxiety and distress they have about what's going on and so if you can find those people and develop that relationship of trust you have a chance of getting Diaries and notes and you've looked at the book I quote endlessly from notes and Diaries and the memo the Secretary of State sent this memo and this is what it said and so forth and those are the dialogue pardon there's also a lot of dialogue right that's you know when we put something in quotes we're pretty sure that's exactly how it was said yeah there's a lot of dialogue and yes there is there's less than people think cuz I paraphrase and then people will say you know I remember exactly what was said or here are my notes people in the White House it's the moment in the Sun for them and they there's some things you remember and they people take documents home at night they'll always deny it and on about the fourth interview I remember one person said you know just I want to get the date of that yeah although maybe I have something upstairs and so he goes upstairs and he came down boxes and you know if the FBI ever got those documents I was drooling over them because they're so significant building blocks of authoritative journalism but none of these things are perfect engineers drawings but what we call the best obtainable version of the truth so you recorded all of these interviews that you did where do you keep these tapes are they in a secure place I mean I imagine a lot what would you recommend well you know this is the way I ask that question because once when when I was in college I had to interview Thomas Oliphant who was a Washington correspondent and a columnist with the Boston Globe and he told me under his bed he kept the recordings and notes and documents of all the stories that he could never totally prove and I thought that doesn't seem like a very secure place to keep all of that stuff and given that a lot of people would like to get a hold of these tapes are they in a secure place well one thing there's not enough room under my bed and that I've worried about this and but it's it's one of those things that it moves on and people knew it was true too many you know I've had too many people say oh yeah of course that's true and that fits and I was there I remember doing one interview about some discussions in the Trump White House and talking to somebody who was there and I said I understand this happened and this happened and this person very prominent position said I didn't take notes but that sounds exactly what happened and as you know in court you they'll let people go in and say and testify and they'll ask under oath what did he say what did she say what happened and it has the power in a courtroom and you can again having time ask other people who were there and the diary if you worked in the White House you'd keep a diary right absolutely how do you keep a diary as editor of The Chronicle I do stop the presses I have a memoir folder on my email I do do I do I think someday that's going in the memoir really yeah does the staff know this well they do now so you know you're you're no stranger to the fake news slur or accusation it happened during Watergate it happened even with this book and this president how do you think the discrediting of the media has changed over the last or has it yeah it's the old Nixon strategy Nixon did the same thing and would say Oh send Ron Ziegler his press secretary and say this is it didn't have what they were not as skilled as Trump is they didn't have that term fake news but it was were character assassins or we make things up or the sources are a fountain of misinformation whatever that means and Trump has a now a high tech well calibrated version of making the issue the conduct of the news media rather than his conduct and he sold lots of people on it and that's where we have to in our business kind of calm down be more empirical and find a way kind of back by just being factual facts facts facts they really do matter do you think that it's possible to restore faith in the media to where it was at the height of the Watergate reporting I I think you I think the truth emerges and this this these are accurate accounts of Trump and now people don't want to deal with it and so forth I wrote something out I read to you because I wanted to this struck me I was in Los Angeles that suburb of San Francisco and last night and a friend of mine I had dinner with and who used worked at the post for years and and he said don't lose sight that journalism is a moral pursuit and he said now it's it's it is a moral pursuit but it can't be moralistic or self-righteous and he said the job of journalism is to locate truth fairness empathy find a voice for the people who have less power I agree with that I think that's true I know we make lots of mistakes I make mistakes too often but this work is done in good faith and that's gonna Trump's charges whatever he doesn't like he will say it's fake news were the enemy of the people I know have known thousands of journalists we're not the enemy of the people and we have a product that lots of people don't like and don't trust and so what we have to do is make the product better like anyone yeah so recently Congress Congress has been getting into the issue of helping the media we have a proposal out there for a journalist Protection Act which would make it a federal crime to attack journalists and then there's also right that's how many votes it would get in I mean is this a joke no okay and there's also the journalism competition and preservation act that would allow smaller outlets to join together and get rid of some antitrust rules and allow them to negotiate with Google and Facebook what do you think about Congress trying to give the media a leg up on anything well they do so many things so well [Laughter] no thank you I just don't think but you know again you've got ma I did just tell this is a little bit of the long story but it's something that's lived with me for a long time and we think we try to get the facts and then we try to take the facts and what we've seen or reported and say this is what it means and that's what we often get wrong and there was a this goes way back it was September 1974 Gerald Ford was President Nixon had resigned in August and for president maybe 30 days and he went on television on a Sunday morning announcing he was giving Nixon a full pardon for Watergate no I think Ford went on television early on the Sunday morning hoping no one was would notice but it was noticed but not by me I was asleep and Bernstein called me up woke me up Carl always knows how to say what occurred in the fewest words with the most drama said the son-of-a-bitch pardoned the son of a you wouldn't allow that in your newspaper but it did convey the message and I was proud of myself for a while because I inside so that's what happened and I thought it's perfect the final corruption of Watergate Nixon gets a pardon and Ford gets the presidency there was an aroma of a deal it was denied but it was too cute right and I would have sticked my life at that time on my conclusion that this was corrupt and then two years later Ford ran against Jimmy Carter and lost largely because of the pardon and the distrust so 25 years later after 1974 so it's 1999-2000 I undertook one of my book projects Chado about the legacy of Watergate in the presidencies of Ford through Clinton and called Gerald Ford up and I never interviewed him never met him at the time in the 70s there was a big poster in the news conference room in the Washington Post that the classified ad Department put up remember when newspapers had classified a it was before my I believe it and and it was a picture of Jerry Ford saying I got my job through the Washington Post we cook him up did you say I need your help yes I did I did and I figured he would and that said I want to talk about the pardon figurine now this is 25 years later 23 years after he'd left the presidency and so we set up interviews I had the luxury of time to to full-time assistants get all the memoirs contemporary coverage 7 interviews with 40 at a home in Colorado 1 in Rancho Mirage California and I would write drafts and then go see him in the last interview I remember in his little and a little Dan and his one-story house and tape recorder going for history and I said whoa I asked why did you pardon Nixon and he said oh you keep asking that question and I said well I really don't think you've answered completely and to my astonishment he said you're right I haven't even told Betty his wife this story but history should know how what happened behind the scenes that was very secret and he said so a week before Nixon resigned Al Haig Nixon's chief of staff came to see him for Ford was vice president at that point in August and Al Haig said look if you agree to pardon Nixon he'll resign you get the presidency and I'm sitting there and I go holy there was a deal and and I said this to Ford me exploded and said there was no deal I tell you I knew that that would be corrupt and more importantly he said I knew a Nix was finished I was gonna get the presidency anyway anyone offer you a deal and say oh you're gonna get something you know it's going to come your way and and then and I said but why what happened and then he went on this monologue that was some so interior about what he'd kept and the nature and the state of play and he said I became president never wanted to become president wanted to be Speaker of the House that I was president and the economy was in trouble was the middle of the Cold War he had a letter from Leon Jaworski was the Watergate prosecutors saying we're gonna investigate Nixon as a private citizen he's because of the tapes and the damning thousands of hours of secret tape recordings surely will be indicted tried convicted maybe go to jail so Ford said so we're gonna have two or three more years of Watergate he said in this plaintive voice I needed my own presidency the country needed to move on it was essential and and he said as president I realized I had some just not ancillary duties but I had a prime responsibility of what is in the national interest and we had to get Nixon off the front page and he said I was haunted by everything Nixon and we had to get Nixon into history and I had this pardon power and so I exercised it and I did it and what I believed and he said I knew I was gonna get slaughtered and for politically and I could never disclose that egg had come and offered a deal because then there'd be investigations and there would and so I acted emptily and what I thought was the national interest I wrote in the book shadow that in fact what I what Ford did was quite gutsy Caroline Kennedy the daughter of the late President John F Kennedy called me up and said she and her uncle Teddy Kennedy had read this in the book and worked and she said each year we give a Profiles in Courage Award to somebody in politics named after her late father the late president his book Profiles in Courage about eight politicians who killed their own political careers by doing what they deemed in the national interest and so they gave this award to Ford I didn't go but I watched it it was televised there was some video of it and what a cold shower for me what to be fully honest how humbling how humiliating to be so wrong because in 1974 as I said I would have staked my life that this was corrupt then you look at her afresh through 25 years of history take go at it patiently know that the key is one person Gerald Ford keeps showing up and saying what what happened really why and what I was sure was corruption turns out to be courage you can't have that experience in our business and not live in a state where the pause button is always on that key we think we know but we maybe don't and so the when Trump was elected I knew was a pivot point in history dropped all work for The Washington Post some other projects got off television and went into the night knocking to try to find out the best obtainable version of the truth from people and from their documentation because I knew I had better not wait twenty five years before doing that story in that book well I you know I think that's something I wish everybody knew is just how much journalists live in fear of getting something wrong like that and not understanding and this is you know the business that the barriers are within yourself you have to really young journalists from will come back you know what's the what do you think and I said you know this is I said if you're supposed to work eight hours work 12 hours you like to hear this no yeah but the editor smiles right jobs here is working too hard what are we gonna do about it right we think them all right now I could ask you questions forever but it's time to take some from the audience so there are people along the side with some if you want to step into the aisle it would probably be best come on down we're gonna start on this side here good evening you spoke about that the report the Miller report found that there was no criminal violations that we say however you didn't quite address the role of Congress in terms of what their obligation is and how that relates to the mall report it even though they didn't define Trump guilty of a crime there's other findings that Congress has a duty really to look into as an oversight body yes and the Democrats in the house are aggressively going after Trump's tax returns I think that's very important I think if we had the Trump tax returns you see this - you'd stop the presses right right and just hear yes that that and all of the other issues that Democrats are going to look at I think that's important but something happened in Watergate and that is and I John Dean who was Nixon's counsel testified the Senate Watergate committee for four days laid out meeting after meeting with Nixon were Nixon ordered obstruction of justice payment for the Silence of the Watergate conspirators and it was stunning at the time and people kind of Nixon denied it and people said well wait a minute and and then the tapes surfaced and so you had high quality evidence and that's critical I don't know how the Democrats are gonna get something that Muller didn't get and what happened this idea of high crimes and misdemeanors morphed into in the Nixon investigation are their crimes well in the case of Nixon there were an abundance of crimes the follow-on scandal iran-contra there was not there were not tapes and no one proved to crime in the case of Bill Clinton there was again all kinds of denial and no one maybe there was a crime he didn't tell the truth in a civil suit and so forth but he was not removed from office so the question I think that everyone's going to be wrestling with for the next two years is dude the Democrats are in the Muller report do they find something that is so damning but I don't think it's in the Muller report because Muller said it's not if bar quoted correctly so you're going to have a lot of political skirmishing and I you know who knows what the outcome is my interest is what does Trump do as president I have in the book one of the lot of information about the confrontation with North Korea Kim jong-nam and as you may recall Kim jong-il said something in a public speech or somewhat early in the Trump presidency said I have a nuclear button and of course Trump's immediate response with the tweet was my nuclear button is bigger than yours and then they discovered through intelligence that North Korea had mobile missile launchers and more nuclear weapons than initially they thought and so the danger was growing and so Trump reversed course as he often does and they had the first summit with the North Korean leader and the North Korean leaders promised he would get rid of Trump says and I get there's some evidence that Kim Jong Jong said I'll get rid of my nuclear weapons and everyone in the intelligence world said that isn't going to happen because the nuclear weapons in North Korea are it's the leaders stature and it's his leverage if you were advising Kim jong-un we say oh give up your nuclear weapons no that's that's the big a very big deal so then Kim said oh well maybe I'm not going to give him up and there was the second summit in it fell apart and collapsed I know from current reporting this is kim jong young stiff donald trump and if you learned one thing from Trump's history don't stiff him and there are a group of people around Trump I call him the go ders who actually believed that it would be a good idea to issue Kim jong-un an ultimatum about his nuclear weapons and you could trigger a war and I described a situation in the book where one of trumps tweets or was getting ready to tweet almost started a war and absolutely gave people in the Pentagon who knew you know they almost had a heart attack over it because Trump was gonna withdraw the civilians out of South Korea the civilians spouses and children of the 28 thousand military people and a back-channel message was sent to the White House on December 4th 2017 saying from the foreign foreign the former foreign minister in North Korea who was the mentor to Kim Jong young and he said if you withdraw these people it will signal that an attack is imminent and the Trump tweet never went out thank God and so anyway we are we are in a dangerous situation I don't think President Trump like a number of presidents don't really understand the consequences of war hi we understand that you're not a psychiatrist however you've spoken with him about him I can't quite hear you oh sorry yes that again sorry member we understand the a psychiatrist and we're not asking for psychiatric diagnosis but you're observant you've met with him you've written about him what would you assess his state of mind to be is he crazy is he crazy like a fox is he losing it how would you assess him psychologically as best you could that's not my brother easier to describe the creation that it's wonder for me I am your brother thank you you know it happily I'm not a psychiatrist in the mysteries of psychiatry I do not understand what I do really I think what's happened Trump has been president for two years and he will come up to the edge on things that like he's going to close the border I mean can you imagine closing the border everyone was telling him it would be a catastrophe and so he reverses course but he he as I said he just doesn't really think about these things he doesn't really think about the next stage of good for a majority of people in the country and it's all kind of what comes into his mind or what's of the moment that is you would people you wouldn't run your lives you wouldn't run your businesses you wouldn't run your newspaper the way this is and I mean suppose you came in suppose you add a big Twitter account do you have a Twitter on Twitter yep you are it's okay you're not I don't think the suppose you just got up at 3:00 a.m. and said you know we're you know it's we're abolishing the metro staff and we're all gonna do music criticism right and and you were you're the boss and well imagine I talked to the people in the White House and they're traumatized just to go us go to sleep because you never know what's going to come up and you know that that is not a very sound way to run the operation and so we we were in New York talk to real estate people who dealt with Trump now Trump had six bankruptcies anybody here have six bankruptcies anyone know anyone who had six bankruptcies you have to work at it to have six of them and the banks didn't like to do deals with him and one of the bankers I talked to and I said what was it like and he said well we all said we're not going to deal with Trump but then time sometimes Trump would own a property and would want to expand it and get a loan or something and so he said we would do the loan but we would structure it so Trump could never get at the cash flow and we called dealing with Trump the Donald risk and now the Donald risk is not just a New York real estate but in the whole country and this idea of operating this way I I worry about it because I know and I hear and see the details and time and time again he just does not comprehend and so you know what are we supposed to do I you know again it's like psychiatry I don't do the political remedy but don't don't kind of think and and what I think his sees the public imagine that's Trump so you know let's just that's what you expect well that's not what we should we should raise the bar on him mr. Woodward when ms Cooper said that she would stop the presses if the Muller report was released so she could publish it and you said the national security people would call you and put enormous pressure on you and then what as I recall your paper did indeed get immense pressure to stop publication of an issue that would supposedly involved national security the Pentagon Papers and they published so what is the rationale why miss Cooper shouldn't publish under the same circumstance yes well I think your point was I shouldn't do it in an hour pardon your point was I should not publish something in an hour not that you should never publish it no no but you have to weigh it and you what you do you go to your sources and you say what about this huh in the Obama administration I was doing the first book I did on Obama Obama's Wars and went to see this CIA director and said these are the 10 things I have in the book that might give you gas pains and and so we went through them and we got to the last one and he said the LAT and the last one he said if you publish that we could lose a war and I got a little tight and said really lose war and then he made the argument and and I and they said so what are you gonna do and I said well I'll weigh it I'll consider it and somebody in the CIA then said to me and and this is the world of Washington and politics said well if you don't publish that do you trade really we'll give you something better or equivalent and you can publish that but not this and I thought well is it something about we'd only lose half a war and this is taking place in the CIA and you wonder you know they're video cameras and microphones and so forth but I have been in situations like this and I think you would agree you cannot trade that is absolutely forbidden and I said no and he then this aide to the CIA director said well what are you gonna do and I said well I'll weigh it and I'll let you know and I did not publish it because the argument was compelling you do not I've been in situations where people have said if you publish this you get someone killed you will get you will jeopardize operations and you is a reporter you never want to do that and I've CIA White House Pentagon meetings about this and you you listen and always are more aggressive than the people who have government power because I think if you ask me what's the thing to worry about the most at secret government Vietnam Watergate all of so much of the trouble we've had because of secret government and we need to be we need to be as aggressive as we can but if I came to you I was if I was working for you and I said I had this story and the CIA director said we're gonna get people in the pink startling operation or whatever it might be killed what would you say I would probably say no it's really hard to weigh that but I think at the end of the day you want to do more good than you do harm whether you yes and getting you know we were talking about we and this is where some of it's gone off the rails but we want you know it is we're interested in the truth and justice and fairness and if you know I if people are going to be killed I mean that's we don't do that and we should not do that in my view we're gonna take one last question I want to invite folks to the atrium immediately afterwards for some dessert and coffee and to continue the conversation yes I'm just wondering what in your career has come close to the experience that you had was Watergate what's the what experience in your career has come closest to your experience during Watergate well in Watergate because we were alone and working on this story there's a malted sieve we wrote these stories essentially outlining the what Watergate was and the extent to which it reached into the Nixon re-election committee and the White House and the president and it was people didn't believe it and Katherine Graham the owner of the Washington Post publisher had invited me to lunch in January 73 she'd supported the publication and I knew her a little bit but she and I went up to this lunch and it was she really blew my mind with what she knew about Watergate because I she's going through asked question submit and she said she'd read something about Watergate in the Chicago Tribune and I remember thinking what's she reading the Chicago Tribune for no one in Chicago does that's a cheap shot I'm dead let me take that back but she was scooping up everything at a management style I don't know whether you subscribe to this Audrey but a leader manager has to have mind on hands off you have to know everything that's going on being intellectually involved but you can't tell your reporters how to reporter or URI you need to know what's going on she had that management style but she also was a killer in terms of asking the CEO question and she said so when is Nixon won 49 states after we've essentially outlined this scandal and she said when are we won is it going to be proven and and I said well because now after Nixon's won so handily we go see people and knock on their doors at night would get most doors slamming slammed in our faces there was a cover-up going on that was organized the Watergate conspirators were being paid for their silence to obstruct justice that the FBI investigation was being curtailed and so that said mrs. Graham the answer to your question was that all going to come out is never and looked across the table and she had this pained wounded expression on her face the look you never want to see in your boss and she said never don't tell me never I left the lunch a highly motivated employee but what she said was not a threat it was a statement of purpose and she said we believe our sources we are this involves the President of the United States so she said we have a triple maybe quadruple responsibility to get to the bottom of it and so redouble your efforts do anything that is necessary because and this is our obligation and she and then she said to me said why why do you think and I I didn't know and she she answered her own question she said we do it because that's the business were in we signed up for this and I left that lunch I was 29 at the time just lifted up that the boss understood understood the risk was willing to assume the risk herself and put the newspaper behind it in the way she did and so some day we are going to put in the lobby of the Washington Post even though the Grahams don't own the Washington Post Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post but even we're going to put a plaque in and we're gonna drill it in so even he can't get it out and it's gonna admit simply but we begin a quote mark never don't tell me never end quote Katharine Graham January 1973 we'll that's an excellent way to end the conversation thank you so much for being with us tonight and I think I speak for everybody that we're very much looking forward to the second Trump book [Applause]

Channel: JCCSF

Views: 98,922

Keywords: politics, journalism, democracy, pulitzer prize, interview, lecture

Id: OajbiD78ZRw

Length: 82min 2sec (4922 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2019