This virtual format works, youll still be able to ask a question of the author if you like. To do so just click on the qanda icon at the bottom of the screen. Bob woodward has been reporting in washington for half a century. In his decades with the Washington Post discovered nine president s and shared two Pulitzer Prizes first the post coverage of the watergate scandal and the second in 2003 for coverage of the 9 11 terrorist attacks carried his books also have made big news and drawn in many readers. His newest book, rage come is the 20t 20th in all of the natil bestsellers. We are accustomed to his books taking us behind the scenes of highlevel ratings and into the minds of those thinking critical u. S. Policy decisions. Whats extraordinary about rage is that this time, donald trump himself spoke with bob 17 times while the book was being written providing a remarkable view into the president thinkins thinking and key moments. The conversation this evening will be another prizewinning journalist chief washington correspondent for the new yorker magazine where shes been for 25 years. Janus also the author of books that have helped deepen our understanding of such important topics as the money behind the rise of the radical right, the war on terror, Clarence Thomas hearings into the iran contra affair. Take it away. Host its great to be with you and with politics and prose. I just wanted to start giving that there has been so much news with a question or two to get your thoughts on the court and i have wondered whether in your work you had gotten any insight into his relationship with Mitch Mcconnell, how do they work together, will they be coordinating closely and do they have the same interests when it comes to approaching filling the vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg . Guest you have a piece of the new yorker to remind everyone what your piece said and did the idea that mcconnell wants to make sure that he maintains control of the senate more than getting other justice; is that correct . Host he would like to do both he and my guess is that he is very canny and will find a way to do both with incredible maneuvers. He often surprises people with the fine print ofine print of te senate. A few people that have interviewed Mitch Mcconnell thinks that nothing matters more to him than stating the majority leader. Put it that way. But i imagine at this point trump really wants yet another justice, and this would be his third on the court. Im sure mitch would like it, too, but not at the expense of losing his majority in the senate, and its dicey politics as we know right now. So, what do you think is going on . How do they work together; have you gotten any guest im going to release some audio and transcripts of trump talking with me about this very issue. I think we are going to release them in an hour, but it shows that trump and mcconnell worked in tandem much more than we thought. Trump has wrapped his mind around this issue of filling the seat of the next Ruth Bader Ginsburg seat and pcs in fact the giants won because what this does is it takes the focus of the virus where his performance is quite frankly i found in my reporting abysmal and it goes to the issue of can he put another justice on the court. This puts his idea of a lack of decorum is very much his style and people are criticizing him saying this isnt fair but this is a pure political power play that mcconnell and trump might pull off quite successfully. A lot of people have said wait a minute, garland didnt get a hearincould get ahearing or a vn reality, the Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell controls these things so theres much more. One of the conversations i had with trump a couple of months ago he said he thought in 2016 he won the election the last four weeks of the campaign. I think you can see that and argue that. I think that hes hoping to duplicate that. Host in your book you have a conversation i dont know if you directly interviewed him, but with Lindsey Graham. If Lindsey Graham and chief Justice Roberts talk a lot and which was news to me and Lindsey Graham is the chair of the Judiciary Committee in the senate right now a pivotal position. Host in the book he seems to express he is worried, and chief Justice Roberts, worried that the court has become so split and politicized and partisan and they dont want it to become more so. Do you think that kind of thinking will have any bearing on who he picks or how do they make this picture using . Guest i think hes going to pick the cubanamerican from florida. It makes all of the political sense in the world. She served on the Supreme Court of florida for many years now. Shes on the federal Appeals Court down there. The cubanamerican heritage, conservative, it is an obvious political pick. But in trumps world you learn not to speak much about your predictions because he continually surprises. But this is going to be as everyone says bloody. But trump and mcconnell are looking at this like we have an opportunity here and it appeals to the evangelicals and to this idea of the kind of rule breaking trump loves. In a way theres a tradition of not trying to ram through the Supreme Court new appointee in the Election Year let alone the last 50 days of the campaign, so i think there is a feeling of political muscle and they are going to exercise it. Host and you dont see it as any kind of the potential for backlash . I know the democrats are already talking about if they take the Senate Majority they would also turn to serve radical muscle and maybe try to pack the court or Something Like that. Do you see any sort of a downsized the six guest people talk about that. Packing the court has a bad odor about it because Franklin Roosevelt tried that and we dont like the way the court is or the way the court has been in all of American History and we are now going to add more justices because we dont like what they are doing i dont think that works in a political or practical sense. You listen to some of the democrats talk about this and say this is absolutely unfair. How can trump and mcconnell think of doing this. What do you think . Host i think that mcconnell and i dont know, havent spend as much time as you have with trump, but mcconnell as somebody wrote today hypocrisy and shamelessness not only is he immune to them that they are a management style. They are not going to care if people say that it looks unfair. Host guest but who are the people that are going to say its unfair, democrats. Host the only thing i can imagine where it might make a difference, and i was interviewing norm ornstein fromm aei, theres a couple of senate races where endangered incumbents come i, and mean for instance, declared shes not going to vote for ginsburg before the election and theres a few others where it could be dicey and it puts them on the spot having to choose between the trump base and the moderates and particularly women who they might not want to lose. You are going to need for that would not vote with mcconnell, for republicans. And today i cant account for them. I cant. They might get romney, murkowski and collins, but i dont know who the fourth would be. Everybody is watching. Guest certainly. But the idea of hypocrisy, what is the hypocrisy . Guest its not going to hurt their feelings. Guest actually i think that is kind of the wrong word. It is playing ultimate political hardball. And as we know, the democrats will do that as well but republicans. So, its going to be a moment where you have to sit on the edge of your seat because theres going to be maneuvers and surprises. Trump is sitting back there like we are talking about this rather than the virus which has now killed 200,000 people. And i found in my reporting and my discussions with trump this all goes back to if i can take you to what i think is one of the most important meetings in the oval office certainly in this century and needy in the longtime advanced january 28 this year when the National Security adviser said to President Trump the virus is going to be not maybe that is going to be the biggest National Security threat to your presidency. And the deputy laid out the details. He was an old wall street journal reporter, very talented, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for what he did for seven years covering the 2003 sars epidemic and he laid out for trump and said this virus is airborne. People who dont show symptoms spread but most importantly he said its not going to be just a little problem. Its going to be very much like the 1918 spanish flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people. They went through the details of this and the president ten days later told me about this and he was talking about china and it wasnt three months until he learned about the january meeting which i start my book with. Its almost like somebody coming to Franklin Roosevelt a week before pearl harbor and the saying the japanese owner going to bomb us and adjust settings on it not doing anything. Its shocking behavior. I think the two pillars of the presidency, first i remember talking to trump about this in our first interview in december last year in the oval office. The question was what is the job of the president and trump said the job is to protect the peop people, and he failed here to protect the people. What he could have done in february, coming out saying i have an authoritative warning here there are things people can do, literally at the state of the Union Address february 4 he could have said watch your hands, keep social distancing, wear a mask, dont go in a crowded room with people for an extended period of time. That kind of remedial behavior. There are models that say tens of thousands of lives could have been saved by acting in february. Host love story you lay out here i think is shocking and egregious. Why do you think he acted this way . What was going on in his head . I know he says he purposely downplayed it to avoid a panic, but is that really its because if hit because ifhe is so concec in the public, he spent in awful lot of time making up fear about things like race riots so he doesnt seem concerned about that particular panic. I did see in your book that is chief of staff was concerned particularly about the stock market dropping. What was going on, how do you account for his failure on this issue that has now killed as of today 200,000 people . Guest he would have thought i were going off the rails. I mean its a shocking number. Your question march 19 i interviewed him and one of our many talks over nine hours i said why have you acted this way about the virus. This is march. Everyone knew that it was airborne. 39,000 new cases a day. Ive always liked to downplay it. I now look at that statement and to be direct with you, when he said i dont want people to panic is what his failure to understand people be governed. I know you can be told of the worst. Its all bad news and you will not lose heart. That is the american tradition if you lay it on the line and say this is going to be difficult but trump wanted to cover it up. It is a failure to lead in any form a failure to understand his responsibility to. Some of the experts would say go with the end of february. Maybe it will be different but right now its good to be fine. People would say well, the Public Health officials but trump down but you know this so well there are two strains, to routes of information to the president. One is National Security and the other is the doctors coming in for these Coronavirus Task force meetings except trump is the only one thats at all of them. He knows whats going on. This failure to warn is one of the saddest moments in history as best i can tell. Host i feel he felt he could somehow outgrown it as you watch the numbers and they are exponentially going upwards and is prepping for the country did he think people wouldnt notice . Guest thats not the way he thinks. He thinks in a very impulsive way as we know was how do i deal with this in this moment. Its a failure to accept responsibility. The longest talk thats in the book this is two months ago. I said what grade would you give your self and he said well i would give myself an a plus. On this day there were 4 million virus cases in the country there were 42,000 americans that have died and hes giving himself an a and then you look at some of his comments in the last we and people ask about him downplaying it and he said i actually played it. That is a word that i checked that isnt even in the scrabble dictionary let alone the big dictionary. One moment hes saying my book is a political hit job and was asked by a fox anchor this week what about the buck is accurate and trump said its okay, its fine. Up, down. Im sorry to say this, listen to this im not sure he knows which way is up and this way is down. That compounds the problem that this is the leader of the country. Host you have covered nine president s and i guess i just have to ask the most basic of questions. Is trump the worst . Host as a reporter you want to cover each one and you could make all kinds of comparisons. The first president i covered with carl bernstein, nixon clearly was a criminal in the Republican Party turned on mixing and he was forced to resign when Barry Goldwater went to the oval office and said i counted the republicans and you have only four votes among the republicans. None in the Democratic Party and one of the four votes for you is not me. The next night nixon announced he was resigning so each one is different. This has left a gaping wound in the country and it is not over. Almost a thousand people are dying every day right now and the failure to describe the things that need to be done the experts say if trump would just say everyone should wear a mask and then he goes to these rallies where thousands of people packed together without masks. What the hell is going on. When i did the first book i said its a nervous breakdown of the executive branch. What do you call it now . Almost something weve put to sleep, 142,000 deaths, not 200,000. We need a wakeup call. This isnt a political issue. This is a practical issue and quite frankly a moral issue. Host i guess the reason i ask whether you ranked trump differently is because as far as i know, and correct me if im wrong but this may be the first president where youve come out and expresse express an opiniont simply says this man is not qualified to be our president. Host what i said is in my reporting he is the wrong man for the job based on overwhelming evidence. Because in a way the book is about are we going to face the truth. As i was working on the epilogue i typed that and then i consulted my assistance and my wife who you know so well into somebody else that worked at the post that was a staff writer, she repeatedly would take me to the woodshed frankly and say wait a minute, you havent absolutely confirm that this yet. I did have another page typed out and then she would go after it and you know her as a friend and i know her as a wife and a friend. The question i had was this process you went through coming out that you are pretty much the most famous and accomplished reporter in america and you come out of a tradition of trying to keep your voice neutral and let the reporting total story. And in this case you actually spoke up as an individual , issued an opinion and i can imagine that its a hard step to take for people like you and me that are trained as traditional reporters and i wonder what is it about trump that made you feel this is the time you ha yoe to speak uhad tospeak up and sat loud . Guest not only was i able to do the reporting and have the luxury that he would call me at all hours and i could call him at any time. He would call back or call at night or during the day. Ive got ten generals waiting downstairs. One question everybody wonders about his life did he talk to you because he kept saying throughout the book i knew this was going to be bad. You are going to do this and that. Do you think he thought he could win the world over or change the Mainstream Media view or did he need someone to confess to late at night, why did he talk to you . Guest what im doing as you know reporting is very practical and i would lay out my questions and he would answer. I wouldnt let him off the hook. When you go for the buck one of the most extraordinary scenes for me was going down to interview him on december 30 last year. The impeachment trial was going on and they started askin i stae questions about impeachment to talk to the attorney general about investigating joe biden and his son so we are shouting at each other saying by releasing this transcript, nixon famously said he gave over by behaving the way he did. So president of trump u. Gave your opponents a sword by releasing the transcript. That transcript is perfect so we are going through. Im just saying wait a minute, wait a minute. Why didnt you do this . That you are saying lets investigate. And you talked to the attorney general and trump said its about corruption. He would go on and on and deny it. I said just as a matter of policy, do you think that the president of the United States should go around asking leaders to investigate his political opponent and he said perfect if i havent released the transcript i would have been in trouble on this. Finally i said do you understand how cleansing it is to apologize, have you thought of apologizing. Guest he apologized for the access hollywood tape. I said go walk around this wonderful place and see what she says. It wouldnt make a difference. Im sure thats true, but thats the interrogation of the impeached president on trial and in the senate, the senate and the house couldnt do and you could hear i am going to go on one of the networks and play the tape of that and we will go through. Its one of the most strangest, we are just. The president of the United States is not logical. Host he is denying reality to you and hes going to convince you of something that isnt true basically. One of the things that i thought was interesting, it was Jared Kushner said there were four texts you need to read to understand trump and one o the f them is the book that you can maybe tell people about this is basically about using this informatiousingdisinformation ag purposefully. Its not that he is saying some thats false without knowing it. Its a strategy and that is what this book is about. Wrong information guest it persuasion is a world where the facts dont matter and hes recommending this as a test to understand his fatherinlaw but he extracts from this controversy over bates method. If this controversy and basically you are telling the truth or enough of the truth in discussion about it that will elevate the message. The example of trump going out and saying the best economy in the world and all of history, going back to the roman empire or something. Thats the way it is. And kushner says okay, everyone knows literally thats true that in the 50s the economy was better and then all the Fact Checkers come around and found like they are nitpicking on something. And an average person looks around and says the economy is quite good. This is before the virus and everyone attacking the president is unfair. The controversy over bates the method that we are now walking into the issue of the new Supreme Court justice the president is going to point. Take that controversy, and there is going to be controversy about it and elevate the message for trump. What is the message . Im trying to get a british Supreme Court justice in that has impeccable credentials, somebody that if it turns out to be the cubanamerican judge from florida or whoever, hes going to be able to see you because they see the evangelicals, im doing this for you and the controversy over bates message. Host id outplays the press. We are always drawn to the controversy, and he predates the controversy on lighting on a subject he wants to talk about and then we have to talk about the subject. I thought that it was a pretty neat description of the tech geek the sort of purposeful lying and how it works. Its not an accident basically. Host key would say it isnt purposeful lying. It is purposeful exaggeration. We used to talk about the extra squeeze. You have something thats good and you take an extra squeeze and overstate it. That is a policy in its operatives and in many ways it works. Host we are talking about how you made decisions to think and say in the book. I had to ask people what would you ask bob woodward and one of the questions people keep asking is why did you decide not to tell the public about how much trump do and when he knew it about the pandemic and in all seriousness the threat was the coronavirus. People always say why wouldnt he tell us earlier so maybe you can tell us why wouldnt you tell everyone earlier . Guest because it was the only issue in february and then in march when the pandemic exploded, that knowledge everyone had. It goes right through here. There is no microphone. In february everything was about china. As we know, we all live our lives in Chronological Order. We dont report in Chronological Order and it wasnt until may they learn how. We never sat around and said. If theres any reason i have access that was the issue of the virus was out of control. I have Public Safety publichealth responsibilities. If you know something is going to happen, you have an obligation to report it. And in this case also i wasnt sure whether it was true because occasionally he says things that do not check out. Host i was curious if you would release all of the tapes of his interviews to you did with him. Its Something Like nine hours, is that right . Guest releasing them selectively. People can hear what he says about mcconnell and its quite a series of transcripts and audi audios. Its part of his legacy he would like to make it more and more of this legacy and he understands numbers he has the nice parchment stack of applied for the new judges. Holding it as something sacred and a picture of kim jong that he gave me in a binder with the letters at that point. Host do you think that he had a judicial philosophy or in fact policy interest you that are consistent . I wondered in reading the book is on for key talks a lot about how important it is to be flexible, which in anothe is any kind of means changing his mind backwards and forwards on things. Do you think maybe one of the other things he seemed quite fixated on was making sure that he had negated all of obamas policies. Is that his major policy, consistent policy direction or doeordoes he have public that they have Public Interest and a judicial philosophy . Guest i think that its transactional. You go into the Grocery Store i will take this and this is what drove senior people who served him like James Madisons defense to and dan coats is the number one intelligence person. There was no planning. There was no organization. There was no lets all get together and decide what they are going to do. Trump decided on his own and finally the alienation they were all heading for retirement. Dan coats, director of National Intelligence had been a republican senator from indiana for 16 years, very close friend with mike pence became the Vice President and when he was Vice President elect he called him up and sent to you want a job and he said no i dont want a job. He and his wife were retiring the. He met with trump and they offered the number one intelligence job. They thought may be a part of the religious evangelicals and part of gods plan for us. Host do you think we should try to take some questions from the audience and they were going gone out of their . Let me see if i can figure this out. Lets see what our people asking. Why do you think he was willing to put himself on tape with such incriminating information contradictory to what he was saying in public . Guest i think that its kind of just became part as you know when you have time to think and plan i could say whats going on in the world i want to ask him about. For instance may 25th, george floyd was killed, so they had awareness of Race Relations and i was able to ask trump i said you are a man of White Privilege and i am a man of White Privilege also my father was a judge and lawyer in illinois. Do you understand the pain and anger black people feel and this is on tape. Youve sure drink the koolaid. I dont feel that at all and just mocked me so you could see in this case and in the dozens of other cases what he really felt. Host hes often critical of the news Media Outlets that are not explicitly in line with his views. How did you get him to speak so candidly with you about what he knew about the coronavirus in the early days and again i have to add one little bit to this as a fellow reporter. I heard way back that you had a special time you felt that it was best to approach people to interview them. And our life may be right before dinner they might put himself a drink and be loosening up a little bit. I know the president doesnt drink and it seems he was calling you at later hours but what is the technique that gets people to just kind of claim themselves as the president did with you. Guest one of the things you know this so well everywhere but particularly in washington, everyone take themselves seriously. When you are talking and interviewing somebody, you have to take hi them seriously as thy take themselves. So you want to ask openended questions and followup. You never do like some reporters they will have an interview set up at 11 00 and one at 12 and another athlon. It can go as long and rarely do they go for four hours but sometimes they do that it creates ive got to go someplace to do something and i think that you communicate that to the person you are interviewing and often they are quite willing to engage. You need to follow up and release some of the tapes from the Supreme Court. Its Pretty Amazing stuff. Its not stuff the key would say al qaeda helicopter were in the oval office. I think that he grew comfortable with it and a number of times said you are asking good questions. These are good questions. I would like to hear what you are inquiring about. And it often overlapped and converged with the news of the day. Host it played into people that described him abut describa narcissist and people that talk about themselves. Did you find that to be true of . Guest im not a psychiatrist. I dont have to say this person is a narcissist and this person is not. The psychiatric slave as far as i am concerned i am not working that way and when i am working towards getting a straight detailed answer. Host here is a question that is about a specific thing what do you make of the president s talk about a powerful new weapon in the book you said you couldnt confirm it. Have you gained any insight into what it is . Guest he said he has a Nuclear Weapon that they dont know about as the most destructive of the world and support. I asked people about it. Some people said yes they know of a weapon that is on the drawing board and somebody else, a couple of people thought theres something. Its one of the mysteries that quite frankly i couldnt answer in the box. I asked and they said yes it exists, but we can talk about it. Some experts i talked to said the same thing. There is no such weapon. Host i am curious if theres anything if you dont him to be surprising in any way or different from what they were expecting. Guest i dont bring an expectation because again i think that could be very host is it different from the picture media team to defend . Guest absolutely. If he would let me repeatedly go at him and say what wait a minute whats going on here. April 5, i spent a long time reporting on how do you deal with the virus and i had a dozen Testing International coordination and i went through one by one and said have you thought about this. We went through all of them and he said did you write this down. Yes, we would go over them again as if he would write them down or have somebody in the room writing them down and my wife was listening because it was on speaker phone and she said it sounds like you are telling the president what to do. Im not trying to tell him what to do. Im trying to tell him what my recording shows. The bottom line summation is that we need globalization. People want to know that its kind of a Manhattan Project like roosevelt and led to the atomic bomb. There is a famous moment in history, Albert Einstein wrote a private letter saying all this business of uranium and so forth and einstein was just getting going. Would roosevelt, he said i dont want to panic people. He said action now and set up the Manhattan Project. Six years later that was realized and the first atomic bomb was exploded over hiroshima and the debate of did he do the right thing and so forth. But he did in that case is prepare the nation and said action now. Lets not panic. Host it seemed that they were having conversations with him are pushing back in ways that his own advisers defend. Do you feel that hes kind of isolated . Guest he is isolated by his own lack of curiosity and organization and intellectual stamina to make the decision. Ask people what they think and so often he wont ask anyone. He will just do it. Its we need to be reminded, this is out of the facts that are on the table the virus is a moving train now thousand people are dying at a. The experts say that its going to get worse. We could have become virgins and god knows what we are going to be presented with in the coming months. And we have a move like a mask. Theres Robert Redfield that headed the cdc. I know redfield. Hes a devout catholic and somebody thats devoted his life to protecting the United States from pandemics and health crises. He is up there under oath telling congress to wear a mask in fact it may be more important than the vaccine. Then he hears about this and at a press conference he says i called redfield that he was confused, didnt know what he was saying. God help us if you have the president of the United States calling doctor saying i didnt like your diagnosis it doesnt fit my political or whatever is going through my head moment. As you know, people piled on saying redfield isnt a guy thats going to Say Something that isnt medically supported and found. Trump still wont put out a mask order. He wont even let the world expert on this issue, Robert Redfield, told a congress under oath what he thinks to restate it and call him up in an event to say that he was confused. I dont even want to use the word, but the word is that his outrageous behavior. I had talks with trump about this. You are in charge of the national interest. This is a leadership moment for you and he would say well, no. I would say the virus is what the election is going to be about. Of course not now, but a couple of months ago