Woodward’s vexation becomes palpable successful the excerpt. “He is staggeringly incautious and repetitive,” Woodward writes, “as if saying thing often and large capable volition marque it true.” Trump made himself amply available, Woodward writes, truthful overmuch truthful that the interviewer kept portion recorders successful aggregate locations wrong his location due to the fact that helium could expect the president to telephone astatine immoderate time. Trump vowed to reply questions connected immoderate topic, Woodward notes. But giving Woodward a first-class summons connected the entree journalism explicit doesn’t truly uncover overmuch caller astir Trump due to the fact that we’ve heard truthful overmuch of it before.
He avoids giving consecutive answers to consecutive questions: Woodward asks if the president of the United States should beryllium asking overseas leaders to analyse his governmental opponents. Trump: “No. No. No. I privation them to analyse corruption,” a implicit nonresponse to Woodward’s effort to get him to warrant his impeachment-inducing telephone telephone to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
He appears detached from his government’s Covid response: Woodward interviews officials who archer him Trump is not listening to his apical aesculapian advisers specified arsenic Anthony Fauci and Robert Redfield. Although helium provides nary Trump quotation that supports this assessment, Woodward writes, “It was wide that Trump ne'er communicated the magnitude of the [Covid] menace to the American people. It amounted to a large-scale deception and coverup.”
He ignores questions and freestyles immoderate brazen lies: When Woodward asks what his Covid program is successful precocious July 2020, Trump claims that the microorganism is “flaring up each implicit the world” but “we person it nether control,” which wasn’t the case. Woodward presses Trump for details connected the Covid program lone to beryllium told, “Bob, you’ll spot the program implicit the adjacent 4 weeks.” Writes Woodward of Trump’s ineptitude, “I wondered however you execute a program that doesn’t exist.”
He turns questions into platforms for bragging and personalization: “I deliberation we’re doing a precise bully job,” Trump says of his Covid response. “We’ve done amended than immoderate — different than with the press. Other than with the press, I’ve done a large job.” On his narration with Kim Jong Un, “I get a consciousness helium likes me. I deliberation helium likes me.”
He feels, arsenic ever, enactment upon: “I person absorption similar cipher has. … I was unlucky with the virus. …”
He wallows successful non sequiturs: Woodward asks if buddying up to Kim Jong Un was strategically designed and Trump answers, “No. No. It was designed for immoderate reason, it was designed. Who knows? Instinctively. Let’s speech instinct.”
The crowning acquisition of the Trump era, 1 that Woodward appears to person gleaned from his reporting, is that lone 1 taxable afloat engages Trump’s interest, and that is Trump. Having Woodward attack him to service arsenic his Boswell seemingly caused Trump’s ego to spell def con 3. Elsewhere connected the tapes, Trump refers to Woodward arsenic “a large historian” and “the large Bob Woodward.” Trump appears to person understood from the opening that the work of his ego mightiness backfire, yet helium would inactive instrumentality the risk. In the 14th interrogation session, Trump says to Woodward, “You’re astir apt going to screw me. Because, you know, that’s the mode it goes. Look, [George W.] Bush sat with you for hours and you screwed him. But the quality was, I ain’t nary Bush.”
Trump’s absorption to the audiobook quality has been to endanger Woodward with a lawsuit, his go-to determination whenever the quality rhythm displeases him. “We’ve already hired the lawyers,” Trump told a vigor amusement big past week. The grounds for Trump’s suit bespeak his feeling that the tapes are “his,” due to the fact that they were granted for people journalism purposes (Woodward’s Trump book, Rage), not audio ones. The ineligible logic present parallels his content that the authorities documents helium allegedly pilfered and stored successful Mar-a-Lago are his due to the fact that helium says they are.
Trump interviews person been and volition ever beryllium futile exercises successful attempting to nail a blob of mercury due to the fact that that’s the mode helium flows. He’s a double-talk creator who uses words arsenic protective coloration because, arsenic a flighty and fidgety guy, helium resists the compunction to beryllium consistent. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t halt trying to get him connected the record. It besides doesn’t mean we should fto him accidental immoderate helium wants without challenging him. But if Doorstop Bob Woodward can’t wring a coherent interrogation retired of idiosyncratic aft 20 interviews of 600 questions, cipher can. Interview him each you want, conscionable don’t expect thing but puzzlement and vexation successful return.
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