Bob Woodward, "Fear"

well it's certainly been a a day of high drama we've had all too many dramatic days over the past couple of years but as history looks back today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing will no doubt stand out as a truly extraordinary event if you're like me many of you are still processing the testimony of dr. Ford and judge Cavanaugh and certainly our featured author this evening Bob Woodward will have some of his own thoughts to share about the Cavanaugh nomination in the context of the Trump presidency which his new book fear portrays in such devastating detail bob has been observing and reporting on major developments in Washington for nearly half a century working for The Washington Post he's covered nine presidents he has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes first for the post coverage of the Watergate scandal and second in 2003 as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 attacks fear is Bob's 19th book all have been national bestsellers and fear marks Bob's 13th book at the top of the bestseller list I think he holds the record for the most number one nonfiction bestsellers of any author now each time one of his revelatory books appears the question comes up how does he get people to talk to him why do people agree to share their stories with them I suppose everyone who confides in Bob has his or her own reason but one thing I know as a former colleague of his at the Washington Post who has on occasion reported in Bob's wake one thing I know is how hard Bob prepares and how hard he pushes and probes he's methodical and relentless fastidious about facts and hell-bent on obtaining documents whenever he can get his hands on them to verify whether something did or didn't happen let me just say to again as a former colleague of Bob's that Bob can be truly generous with his time and his advice many of us at the post have been grateful he's remained on the staff as an associate editor contributing to the paper and coaching other reporters when he could have chosen a number of other career paths Bob will be in conversation here this evening with another first-rate journalist Michael Schmidt my Michaels with the New York Times and he and he started there as a news clerk 13 years ago and now covers national security and federal law enforcement he was part of two teams that won Pulitzer Prizes this year one for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues and the other for coverage of Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election and Russia's connection to the Trump campaign ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming both Bob and Michael [Applause] it's the nicest anyone's been certainly to me in a long time even though they're cheering for you obviously a long day everyone in Washington glued to the testimony you've written a book about the Supreme Court several years ago how did today compared to previous hearings like this contentious well obviously this is quite electric what happened did the book the Brethren with Scott Armstrong and this book came out in 1979 were you born it didn't come out in 79 I'll send you a copy and the conclusion in the book at the end and it's supported is that the center of the court was in control a group of three or four justices how they went the left or the right would join with them I mean now obviously there is no center or very a very small center so that makes a big difference on the Cavanaugh issue let me tell a story about doing the book the brethren the book came out and this is this is a story about memory which i think is very important to the Cavanaugh issues a the book came out and a clerk called Scott Armstrong and myself and said in the book on a certain case you say that the clerk apologized for it was justice rehnquist circulation at that point and he said I was the clerk that is absolutely totally wrong I'm gonna sue you I'm gonna hang you out to dry I am you know everything you might possibly do to someone you have to correct what's there so we went to our files and this is the beauty as you know of documents and we found in the files on that case the circulation in that opinion and the clerk in his own hand had written I'm sending this around I apologize for it so we called them and said here's what you wrote and he said I don't believe it we made Xerox and send it to him and he called back and I think quite honestly said I would have staked my children's life that that did not happen and I now realize that it did so when is memory valid and as you know and your terrific reporting you've got one source doesn't work you've got to have two sources you have to see if you can get some sort of documentation and that takes time and that's hard did was the contentiousness today how did that compare to Bork or how did that compare to Thomas and is it different because of the media what what's what's interesting the the Democrats are particularly saying we've got to have an FBI investigation and they talk is if FBI investigations reach conclusions which has been pointed out they normally don't but sometimes the evidence is so overwhelming it's implied in what they report but going back to the Nixon case and Watergate the FBI investigation was part of the cover-up and it was a way to mask and protect Nixon and protect people in the Nixon campaign and the White House and the Attorney General at that time I remember this very well Richard Kleindienst went on television and said well we conducted 1345 interviews all over the world we we got it right it's over no one else was involved in the original burglars and and their two handlers and there was that sense of well wait a minute that's a lot of interviews a lot of work and they got it wrong so maybe an F so it's not always definitive and it may not always be right I'm sure everyone here is seeing that the book on an enormous amount of attention and the thing that struck me the most about the book was that I thought that you drew conclusions in a way that you may not have in previous books you were very critical of how Comey handled his interactions with the president when he briefed him on the dossier and then your largest conclusion was the fact can you imagine you're two weeks away from becoming president an FBI director comes in and there's no way the ghost of J Edgar Hoover is not far behind and says by the way if we have this secret dossier about you being with prostitutes in Moscow three years earlier how would you feel well how should Comey have handled it not that way and and Trump has the legitimate beef in my view and I say so in the book and being the prisoner of too much history and writing too much about presidents in the case of Bill Clinton when he came in to office in 1993 and his White House Counsel was burning this bomb and first of like six yes that's right but but the the first and as you imagine Clinton had some baggage too and there were all kinds of things that the FBI got about Clinton's extra curricular activities which were abundant and so they sent all this instead of briefing Clinton on it they sent it to Bernie Nussbaum the White House Counsel and this bomb looked at it and said hmm put it in the burn bag and said okay let's see what happens let's see how these things and I'm not sure the burn bag is I wish he'd called me and he didn't but the idea of the FBI director getting in the face of somebody like Trump who has a big ego has a penny tie quote in the book he Clinton told his lawyer when it was after this briefing he said um Alania can never find out about this of course it was about two minutes or two days later she did as did the world yeah and you draw a conclusion that the administration is in a very dangerous spot and I felt that that is the is that the furthest you have ever gone and why did you go so far Evelyn Duffy who's my assistant are you here Evelyn raise your hand Evelyn stand up because a George Washington University graduate class and the year 2007 she's worked for me since actually at that time and we've done five books for presidents and she knows all the secrets and she knows how to keep secrets and she knows how to kick me in the ass and for that I salute her and GW but but Evelyn and my wife Elsa Walsh very much involved this was a family affair and they both said you cannot step away from the obvious conclusions of what you found in the book that there is there a group of people which I Ellis trait very vividly who stand up to Trump steal documents off his desk on South Korean trade because it's connected to lots of very sensitive intelligence operations documents on NAFTA documents on climate change and so forth it's a regular procedure get it off the resolute desk and he will not remember or not think about it and as I say so and and you've got all of the other things John Dowd his lawyer for the Russian investigation for eight months can you imagine being Trump's lawyer eight months and he goes through and he finally does a practice session with with Trump and and in the White House and they're overlooking the monuments and Dowd the lawyer plays Muller and asks questions of Trumpets kind of a dry run and and Trump makes things up lies loses emotional control and finally doubt says you cannot testify if you testify will be as he elegantly puts it an orange jumpsuit and you don't have to know a lot about law enforcement to not recognize what that is and so you connect all of these things and my conclusion in the book is that it is an administration in a white house that's going through a nervous breakdown so what's going through a nervous breakdown how could it go wrong what would a manifestation of that look like is it something on the trade or economic side is it give us an example of okay it's in a dangerous spot what could happen just untrained and it sounds esoteric but the trade war with China 99.9% of the economists say tariffs make no sense they hurt consumers we buy things abroad in this country because they're cheaper and they're better quality and Trump somehow has in his head that were they're taking that money from us they're stealing it and he will not get that out of his head and one of the conclusions I make is that this is there's a war on truth and part of it is not just what Trump sands but what where Trump gets these ideas and the experts go in and that you know they have two men Gary Cohen as chief economic advisors kind of slow slaps him gently in an affectionate perhaps way and says if you'd shut the [ __ ] up you would learn something [Applause] so you you've got to connect it but I I think it's and I it's not partisan this isn't a partisan I mean I it may ask you a question sure sure will you answer maybe okay do you I mean you you've done great reporting great digging reporting on the Muller investigation and lots of new information has come largely through you quite frankly and do you consider yourself part of the resistance no not at all what are you I'm simply out to follow the story wherever it goes no matter whether it's good bad or otherwise for either side suppose Muller goes on for several more months and says you know I can't prove collusion with Russia by Trump or anyone in a close somebody close to him and that there's no obstruction of justice I can prove are you gonna feel badly no what are you gonna feel I'm gonna try and find out why you didn't get to that conclusion you think that's possible he would reach that conclusion very possible you do as possible as any as the other possibility yeah then you would and so how do you insulate yourself emotionally [Music] and we should have had a couple of couches here rather than chairs so three times a week I see my therapist yeah I just simply say that like I try and divorce myself as much as possible I didn't vote in 16 I didn't vote in 12 and that for me enabled me to push myself away and say okay I'm sort of an outsider to this I'm sort of like it's like you kind of look up your and I looked at it like trying to cover the weather it's like there's a big storm in front of you and I'm trying to see different parts of it and I can't really affect the weather and it's not my job to affect the weather it's just my job to try and figure out the weather and just try and follow it where it can and when right after Nixon resigned in 1974 Katharine Graham who was the publisher owner of the Washington Post sent Carl Bernstein and myself a letter and kind of it was a lovely letter of personal advice and she said you know now this has happened Nixon's gone don't get too full of yourself and then she said beware the demon pomposity and that was really good advice because there's a lot of pomposity in our business in politics even academia academia occasionally and it is the it is the crippling force I think and you have to really try to bleach out I love your analogy it's the weather and you you know you can get up and kind of say an awful storm is coming but that doesn't mean you're blaming the creator or it means you're and I think there's a way to stay on this side of the non-resistance and to be very empirical and very factual and because I done this so many years sometimes you were just wrong you're I thought the Ford pardon of Nixon was really the last stage of the cover-up then I investigated and discovered actually it was an act of courage to let the country move on and so that's very sobering I think one thing that I had always keep in the front of my mind and especially with the time pressures that that homeowner is that I'm always one step from the gutter I'm always one bad tweet away from destroying my reputation I'm always one you know wrong story away from hurting myself and you know it's just it can be not only yourself the New York Times yeah and this is where you've got to find Simon Bradley the great editor of the post during Watergate and for a couple of decades used to so well remembered this and in a story and they look at it and they go you don't have it yet that mint will print it if you do get it but you've got to have more information and more sources and I always said and believed he was great editor not just because of what he published but what he kept out yeah I are there those filters at the New York Times for you there's a lot of time where we run up to write a story where we we get ready we write it we go to folks to get a response and then in that last 12 hours we realize we don't have it and then we kind of received back we wrote a story earlier this year on Trump on John down offering pardons talking about pardons to the lawyers for mana fort and Flynn and we ran up to the line three times it was kind of like you know like a goal-line stand and were three yards out we first down we tried and we didn't have it and we pulled it and we didn't run it second time and then the third but in that process you flush out a lot of didn't you did run eventually we and he still denies she still denied he does denies a lot of things yeah a lot of things how did did you think the president was well served by John doubt and John down Stan you're John daddy left in mark you know the it's an interesting question some people think definitely not by turning all over all the evidence over and thirty-seven witnesses and who's the seventeen hours of tape of Don McGee ins notes notes which are supposedly very intimate and very important and then other people say you know it was a gamble and you had to take it if you're Trump's lawyer because you have to keep him from testifying and if he testifies that would be the legal and political catastrophe do you agree if he testifies yeah yeah I mean he struggles with the truth more than any public figure right now so so how do we deal with that well and especially because Muller has shown a very quick trigger on that issue so he's rung up several folks on lying to investigators some of the things significant some less so and the president is not someone obsessed with the facts so what are the so what are the techniques you use is a reporter to get verification because I think that's very I think that's something we don't communicate to the public enough about that can you answer that without the terrain trade it's there's a there's a bunch of factors one of them is your proximity to the information how close are you to the information how historically helpful and accurate have you been there are people that are in the room that are amidst all these big decisions that that that they don't bad a thousand they don't have great memory of what goes on in front of them they don't have great notes they don't have great documents you sort of look at the totality of all of these different things we had this recently with a rot Rosenstein story about how rod Rosenstein had talked about wiring himself up or using the 25th amendment to oust the president in the end it fell into sort of two buckets of information there was months and months of reporting that from folks that had access to contemporaneous notes that had access to folks that were in the room that knew everything that was going on in real time and that had a track record of being accurate and being truthful and then in the other bucket we had one person who was a handout from the Justice Department who was an anonymous person who said it was sarcastic so he stepped back and you look at them and you look at the totality yeah how did you do that how did you get past that in the book yeah that's what I have found over doing this for decades and all these presidents you can hear something you can say well there's like I knew from all kinds of people there's great tension between HR McMaster who was the national security adviser and Rex Tillerson the Secretary of State and they really had it out and somebody said there was a meeting in the summer and they had they had a big fight about and then I found somebody who actually took notes and the notes say Tuesday January 18th 5:15 Wright's province's office the chief of staff at the time and then there are verbatim and it turns out that Priebus was doing a kind of a routine review with Tillerson are you achieving your big goals and in walks McMaster to the meeting and sits down and Tillerson lets loose on the White House the you know the president can't make a decision he makes a decision he undecide he read decides there's chaos here and then finally McMaster just laughs rages it Tillerson and says you know I'm in the money line is you are affirmatively acting to undermine the national security process I don't know what you're doing and that I found some examples and Evelyn found that oh yeah one of these examples is clearly in the public record that Dillard's and in Veda a anti-terrorist agreement that was public with the oil-rich state of gutter and he McMaster didn't know about it and they start talking about it and they realized Tillerson actually had a press conference and gutter saying we've been working on this for weeks and McMaster says you know I did not even know and then they discover the president didn't know the staff secretary Rob Porter didn't know and so you you put dates and documents and verbatim and I always am suspicious when somebody says one afternoon may well what day in May what time who was there what was said and if you can get that kind of granularity now it I have the luxury of time to work on these things and go back and find sources who who have notes and and documents which I think are much more important than we realize we're gonna take questions if folks would like to line up there right there are two microphones in the back um you want to tell them the microphones have been provided by gordon Liddy C that means how do people who were in college know who gordon Liddy is when when you put out this book enormous amount of attention certain things like taking the the letter off the desk gets a lot of attention what telling reporting did you do that you felt really sometimes we do this we do great reporting and it doesn't get as much attention and people sort of miss and you said man you know I killed myself to do that and it kind of fell flat yeah but what there was a rationale for doing it and because at risk was a special access program one of the great secret intelligence operations that I don't do not dare describe because it buys a degree of security for this country that we don't realize and then I actually got the document and got a picture of it and put it in the book so if somebody like President Trump said oh if that had happened I would have fired Gary Cohen who had done it in two seconds but you know there it is and so yeah there's a kind of you can't get around that you can't get around some of the things but we you know there is this war of truth going on and you some of your best stories that I know are true have been denied and sometimes the stronger the denial is the more truth that's there and like the Rosenstein Rosenstein story about talking about wiring himself for somebody to get the President on tape and talking about the 25th amendment that story would have been much more powerful if there was action that followed if you've kind of said had a picture in the New York Times here is the wire that the Deputy Attorney General wore in the meeting with the president or at 2:15 on this day these cabinet officers got together and talked about the 25th amendment so lots of things are said in the end it's what's done and I tried to make this a book about what President Trump does is president in all the foreign policy areas all the trade the tax areas the things that matter to people's lives if there's been a lot of focus on the Muller investigation for very good reason there's been a lot of focus on all the untruths that Trump tells in my paper has countered what 4,000 or 2000 it's in the thousands and the real issue is and Evelyn and my wife Elsa helped me with this well what did he do is President is there a theme to the president's decision-making it-it-it often is people will say you know these are the facts we win eighty five point seven percent of our cases in the World Trade Organization where we file unfair trade practices against country the countries in the princess that's the worst organization in the world and they say well this is your government your trade representative light i sir call him and check then i don't want to call i don't want to know and often he will say i mean there's one scene that's startling that they have word where do you get these ideas he said well I've had them for 30 years and if you disagree you're wrong and so there is the that's the same the closed mind which of course leads you to the question what what should we really worry about we should worry about a crisis something unexpected because it's not a team of first question good evening gentlemen mr. Woodward thank you so much for being here tonight is a tremendous honor to be able to see you my name is Elliott Bell Krauser and I'm a proud GW colonial class of 2008 from the Colombian College poli-sci when you and mr. Bernstein were covering President Nixon in the Watergate investigation in 1973 and 74 you and in the Washington Post and other newspapers faced threats and you know things that I can't even imagine in today but today it seems that the Free Press is under assault worse than ever how in your opinion does what happened to you and the post and other journalists in 1973-74 compared to what is happening today I'm sorry I've looked at the question that the criticisms of the press when you're covering Watergate how does that compare to the criticisms of today well Nixon and his spokespeople were pretty tough we were called character assassins and the original fakeness yeah but you know I'd rather be called fake news than a character assassin I'm sorry I'm the neither but if answer the question this way it was January 1973 Carl and I had written these stories that really ledge said Watergate was a Nixon White House re-election campaign operation and the key was that it wasn't just the Watergate burglary was a series of sabotage and espionage operations and we had a bit of a problem no one believed the stories Nixon won a massive re-election in November of 72 so Katharine Graham invited me for lunch in January of 73 and she'd supported the story and I knew her a little bit but not well and Carl had to go to a funeral that day and so she sat down and in her lunch room and said well and she truly blew my mind with how she knew the facts of Watergate they had all kinds of questions she even at one point said she drug read something about Watergate in the Chicago Tribune and I remember thinking what the hell is she reading the Chicago Tribune before no one in Chicago does that there she was scooping up the information and had a leadership style I later described his mind on hands off didn't tell us how to do things but was intellectually involved and completely informed and she said at one point well ones the truth going to come out and I said you know I think because the cover-up is very effective because people won't talk to us now that Nixon is one reelection because they pay paying the five Watergate burglars for their silence never and she I remember she just was had this pained wounded look on her face any of your bosses at the New York Times ever had that look sometimes yeah baby it's you hate it and she said I and I said so the answer is it's never gonna come out chief said never don't tell me never and I left the lunch a highly motivated employee but it wasn't a threat it was a statement of purpose and she I mean that this is the strength of real gutsy leadership in the news media and and she said to me said why do you think we're doing this and I I was 29 I didn't have an answer and she said look this involves the President of the United States we have a triple quadruple responsibility to get to the bottom of it so keep working instead of pulling back go forward more aggressively and and why do we do this and again you know I don't have an answer and in she gave the great answer because that's the business were in and that's you know somebody really saying willing to assume the risk the necessity of assuming there was you got a post guy and times guy there and I like to know what the post guy thinks is in New York Times anonymous editorial or op-ed or whatever it was and what he thinks of the substance and secondly what he thinks of publishing an anonymous just like that it's a great question let's let Michael answer first suppose anonymous somebody in a well-placed position in the New York Times said I want you to write a story quoting me essentially saying what's in that op-ed piece what would you have done we would need many more details and examples 515 July 18th specifics yes specifics and how would you have gone about that you would I would have pushed them question them and then asked if they have anything to corroborate what they're saying yeah because it's easy to sit and say you know this administration's a mess but it's much more powerful to show an example like your book is filled with them if Anonymous had come to me I would have said go to the New York Times [Music] [Applause] mr. Woodward thank you so much for being here tonight I feel like you're the most qualified person on the planet you can answer this question for me the the great journalists of another era Upton Sinclair said you can't make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it how do you get truth from someone who genuinely believes the delusion that they're buying into and you need to get truth from them but they just can't accept truth Wow you know this sounds like a philosophy 523 @gw you know what you you've won a deal and concrete things and let me answer it this way can we do a little role-playing here I'm reporter on me you're the assistant secretary of defense and I've come to interview you now what's going through your head why is he here what is he gonna ask me where am i vulnerable vulnerable and maybe the truth makes you wear a mic you vote where am i vulnerable personally in where is the administration potentially so I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna start asking you things and then I'm going to get out a piece of paper and I'm gonna say mister assistant secretary in an article in defense news 32 years ago you wrote the following and I'm going to quote it and you might think I thought only my mother read that day an article and here's this guy coming in quote it now it's not a ruse I want to know how you think the larger theory of the case is to treat you as seriously as you treat yourself true as you look at yourself you take yourself seriously right I have to take yourself sir you seriously and really I'm getting that detail and then if you're helpful I'm gonna say can I come back and then after two or three interviews if it's useful I'm gonna say you know how about talking next week well I'm busy next week and then I find out where you live and I come knocking on your door right and then I say oh [ __ ] Bob Woodward's yeah and do you let me in probably why it's hard to turn people away yeah I think it's hard I think it's hard for people to turn away other people yes I think it's harder and I my lying on this is we're not showing up enough and we've got to really show up and it means physical presence we're doing you know people will crowd around the computer say oh we've asked the White House for comment on and the innocent three people over at the White House are saying how can we respond to this and not say anything of substance and you've got to get out of that mode and you have to get out of the impatience and speed mode we gotta have this it's so competitive I mean you read I suspect I hope the Washington Post as soon as it comes out each night and it's kind of a continuum and what do you like it when the post has a good story or not I don't like it at all you don't yeah not at all not a well actually this reminds me of something that I recently read in a book what did you do after sy Hersh in early 1973 who sy Hirsch who came down for the times to cover Watergate you Nixon had been reelected it's that same period of time where you go out to lunch with Katharine Graham what did you do after sy Hersh wrote a story in The Times what was the story that was really was the story about the Watergate burglars being paid I called him up and said thank you why well because we were alone and it was a it was a key piece of evidence to the cover-up that they would pay actual money to for family support and lawyers fees and so forth it was a stunning story the other side of it was I felt agony that we did not have that story but it was such a good story and it it really lifted our spirits but validated it showed another experienced reporter sort of on the same path right and a good way yeah and and not buying the line of course the line then 45 years ago was very much what we hear now let's examine the conduct of the press not the conduct of the President hello gentlemen thank you both for being here tonight my name is Ethan Moran and I'm currently a tenth grader at Sandy Spring Friends School mr. Woodward you've had one of the most successful careers in journalism in American history and I was wondering how a high schooler like myself would go about following a career like yourself and journalism or politics get an internship at the New York Times that they're really easy to get isn't that the way you started I started answering the phones they wouldn't even let me be an intern I had to start answering the phones and how did you move up I mean this is so I started at the times at a college as a clerk on the copy on the foreign desk and it was my job to do two things one was to get reporters in Iraq in the Middle East on the phone with editors of the New York Times who don't know how to dial their own phone and the other one was to take calls from Judy Miller from jail because the only number she remembered was the final but just being in the newsroom gave me an enormous opportunity and I basically said I will take any assignment possible I will Carr I covered murders in the Bronx and I eventually got a break in sports by doing Steinbrenner duty by standing outside Yankee Stadium and getting a quote from George Steinbrenner so I did a lot of low end things that no one wanted to do because I knew that they could lead to other things down the line and I think if you take that attitude you can really and get your foot in the door yeah you gotta get it in fact that I was in the door and that just real quickly I Jeff Bezos who owns the Washington Post the Amazon CEO I asked him once said how do you decide who to hire because this applies to your question and he said well who quickly said I have four criteria I like people have been write a lot I like people who listen really listen not strategic listening where you know you're listening so you can think of what you're gonna say rather than letting it come in people he likes to hire people who change their mind I think that's important and then his fourth criteria is a most fascinating he said I like to hire people who have failed and are still standing that you learn from failure and you can't fail and be gone you got to still stand and then Bezos will hire you we ever see Donald Trump's tax returns between now and the end of time yes well maybe not sometimes you know they never come out I think in terms of really getting traveling that painful road of introspection I think it's one of the media's failures I think personally my failure because I was working on his tax returns in 2016 and we did not get them I did not get them and we should have because people in the IRS have said very confidentially in a very confidential way if you had these this is the roadmap to his life and who he is and I think also we did not find or the political system didn't find a way to demand that he turn over his tax returns he just said no and of course that's the Trump you know I'm going to do it my way one of the failures and I think if you ask a group like this if how many people basically distrust the media can I ask how many people basically distrust the Media raise your hands okay not many you can tell it's a college audience but you can go to an audience and get 90% of the people who will say they distrust the media and so there's enough distrust out there and whether it's 20 or 30% or what it's too high and we can't blame the customers we've got to think about fixing it ourselves and being more empirical being know you know getting on TV I think is dangerous have you found that yeah yeah yeah I've you say things on TV that you won't put in your stories well I shouldn't do you know did you ask me anything I did either way no I try not to sit I try not to say anything on television that I had that I haven't written one of your editors told me they heard you say something on television and they said why was it they had in the story that's the problem yeah yeah but do you think TV for print journalists at my paper your paper or a good thing I think that it's another way to reach folks and I think that when people see us and they see that we're fact-based people that are trying to tell a story I think that that can be helpful I do and I think that we need to be out there more explaining our work and showing ourselves because when we're just a byline and there's not much more than other things can fester about and it's got to be it can be tough but it's got to be neutral Hugh Hewitt who conservative radio talk show host I went on his show and he said he found things in my book that actually made Trump look strong and he liked that and he said I'm gonna buy lots of the books and Ear dropped them into every embassy in Washington there'd be a lot of books I gave him the address by them and discount but I don't think he ever did it but I would quite honestly was heartened by somebody like that saying oh there are things here and also the explanatory part of from well cuz it just shows that it's fair it's a fair assessment it's tough though when when Trump last month called me to complain that I hadn't interviewed him and first thing I said I'd like to tape record this mr. president and he said certainly and then I said I'd tried six people and didn't get through and he acknowledged one or two and it was Astrid did you read this what did you think of that well what would you have asked him if you could have interviewed but if I asked a question yeah the book was already printed and what do we do have a kind of pamphlet that we stick in it in the back it kind of say wells about Trump called and I I looked at it as I had them no but if you did if you had sat down with him what would you have asked him I mean ultimately you want to get to specifics but you want to ask the question why what is what is the big theory why what are you trying to do what's the next stage of good for a majority of people in the country that's your constituency we have to wrap things up but I wanted to end it by having you read the last paragraph of the book which i think is a great summary sort of what you had found and it is just a good way to sort of end things well Evelyn wrote this paragraph no she did not but she helped me as did Elsa but this is about Dowd the lawyer who has resigned because he just said I cannot sit sit next to you mr. president and have you destroy yourself and not tell the truth and he said you're incapable of telling the truth you're disabled so this is doubt but in the but in the man and his presidency John Dowd had seen the tragic flaw in the political back-and-forth the evasions the denials the tweeting the obscuring the crime fake news the indignation Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president you're a [ __ ] liar thank you very much [Applause] you you

Channel: Politics and Prose

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Keywords: Bob Woodward, Bob Woodward Fear, Bob Woodward Trump, Bob Woodward Donald Trump, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Michael Schmidt, All the President's Men, Carl Bernstein, Katharine Graham, Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward book fear, Bob Woodward interview, Bob Woodward book, Bob Woodward new book, Bob Woodward Donald Trump book, Bob Woodward Trump book, Donald Trump, John Dowd, Gary Cohn, journalism, Fear by Bob Woodward, Fear Woodward, Woodward Trump book, fear book

Id: IJFMS504yx0

Length: 56min 24sec (3384 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 28 2018