current law. woodward published them in the trump tapes which provides reporting to support his assessment that trump is a unique, unparalleled danger to the nation. that conclusion goes farther, quite frankly, than much of the journalism that woodward has been known for, chronicling ten presidents, breaking stories across watergate that upended the nixon era and history itself, deep looks at clinton, bush, the obama years. 20 books in all, two pulitzer prizes. up front, this special we re doing tonight is built around woodward s reporting along with additional government material, public sourcing, and a walk through the recent archives of this pandemic era. so after we show you what we are learning tonight, we will turn to mr. woodward who joins us later in this program. first, we re going to walk through some of his reporting. largely chronologically as the pandemic first hit america. if journalism is the first draft
course of a week. we are still knee-deep in the first wave of this. we cannot ignore it, and we cannot call it a hoax. and we cannot misrepresent the facts. that was also july. now everyone knows covid was a health crisis, but it also morphed into a misinformation and propaganda crisis. as donald trump now runs for office again, it is worth recalling the lengths he went to blame and confuse the issue. he took the unprecedented step of making the u.s. formally quit the main international body for coordinating this kind of response, exiting the world health organization in the middle of a pandemic. you saw that in a movie, it might seem like a hard plot point to believe. that was amidst the testing shortage, cases peaking. and there were other steps as well. trump later made a step toward publicly supporting masks, even publicly donning one himself. these tapes also show that no
virus, not joe biden. well, i m running against both. you ll see the plan, bob. i ve got 106 days. we were riding high. the election was over. i was going to win easily. and all of a sudden we get hit by the china virus. and now i m working my ass off. few presidents have ever been captured lamenting that a threat to the nation required them to work hard. contrasting, accurate advice shared with their own family and misleading information presented to the nation. it s all on tape. tapes that trump is now suing over as he asks the nation for another opportunity to lead it. how does this report and these tapes inform the decisions ahead? well, that is my first question for bob woodward, our guest for this special when we are back in 60 seconds.
what do you hear in that answer? that he s not busy. quite honestly. yeah. that it s a way of, oh, i m busy. i would talk to him. you can hear this on the tapes. he d say, i can t talk for lock, i ve got the joint chief is downstairs. then he d talk for 25 minutes. he d tell you the joint chiefs of the armed services are there, and then oh, i m talking to you? it s on the tape. so the question looms here, you know, who is he? what kind of person? what does he care about? you know, we have one of the lessons we learn as reporters, if you re out in the field and there s somebody injured, in war or in a street protest, you take the notebook and you help the
through with him. you need to mobilize. yes. i m going to play this. because it s tapes. everyone s on tape. a cameo by your wife. yes. pretty interesting. i ll let the tape do the talking. let s discuss on the other side, take a listen. give me a list of those things. i m going to talk to my what i ll do is send them to jared. read them out, go ahead, read them. okay. the first is testing. it s got to be a manhattan project. number two, the medical supply chain has to be made as perfect as it can be. experts say you may have to federalize that. number five, shelter in place. that there needs to be a national order. i know you don t want to wear a mask. the experts are saying i hear the briefings, sir. all right, go ahead. six, the food supply. you were really shouting at him. i was. to get in a word edgewise.