reporting, i have never disclosed the raw interviews or full transcripts of my work. but after listening again to the 20 interviews i conducted with president donald trump during his last year as chief executive, i ve decided to take the unusual step of releasing them. i was struck by how trump pounded in my ears in a way the printed page cannot capture. in their totality, these interviews offer an unvarnished portrait of trump. you hear trump in his own words, in his own voice during one of the most consequential years in american history. amid trump s first impeachment, the coronavirus pandemic, and large racial justice protests. the trump tapes leaves no doubt that after four years in the presidency trump has learned where the levers of power are and full control means installing absolute loyalists in key cabinet and white house
also see the letters that trump wrote to kim. trump responded, oh, those are so top secret. associate editor of the washington post bob woodward joins us now. his new audio book titled the trump tapes: bob woodward s 20 interviews with president donald trump goes on sale tomorrow. bob, this is a first for you. why so important to release these audiotapes? we have bob s his video shot just froze but we ll get him back. i can answer that question by reading from a new piece that bob put out explaining why he put the interviews out. and this is what it says. the piece is entitled the trump tapes: 20 interviews that show why he is an unparalleled danger, and bob writes in part, in more than 50 years of
investigator reporter and bob woodward of the former president. some of it was played on cnn earlier today but what you ll hear tonight has never aired. from 2016 through 2020 woodward taped his conversations with the former president. he will be releasing all 20 of these conversations on the 25th of this month as an audio book titled the trump tapes which runs for more than eight hours. cnn has obtained a copy and what you ll hear tonight is striking. it speaks to who he was as president, who he is as a person and how completely intertwined the personal and presidential were for him and probably still are. something that s not just apparent in what he says but even more so in how he says it. something the printed word just can t fully convey. the conversations also speak directly to some of what the former president is now being investigated for. namely how he views classified material and a president s responsibility for safe guarding some of the countries deepest secrets and that s
of this month as an audio book titled the trump tapes, which runs for more than eight hours. cnn has obtained a copy. what you will hear tonight striking. it speaks to who he was as president, who he is as a person, and how completely intertwined the personal and presidential work for him. and probably still are. something that s not just apparent in what he says, but even more so and how he says it. something the printed were just cannot fully convey. the conversations also speak directly to some of what the former president is now being investigated for. namely how he views classified material. and a presidents responsibility for safeguarding some of the country s deepest secrets. that s why these conversations, which have never been heard before, are so significant. cnn special correspondent jamie gangel has an exclusive tonight. she joins us with some of the audio. what stands out to you the most? i think as you said is hearing trump say these words. and you re in the room with b
interviews over four years with former president donald trump. it s called the trump tapes. woodward is releasing them because hearing trump speak is completely different experience than reading transcripts or listening to snippets of sound on tv. some deal with letters from kim jong-un which are now at the heart of the justice department s classified documents investigations. trump shared them with woodward. nobody else has them but i want you to treat them with respect. understand. understand. don t say i gave them to you, okay? okay. but i think it s okay. normally i wouldn t have i wasn t going to give them to bob but you make a photostat of them? no, i dictated them into a tape recorder. really? well, in another interview trump is writing a speech after