Bullies with way through on this, and the information i have, its going to be just a a train wreck upon a train wreck at election or after election time. How do you count the votes, how do you make sure that there is a fair and square election . Were were heading into another chapter, chapter 73 of trump world and were just going to have to watch it day by day, hour by hour. You spoke with the president , i believe, 19 times, for this book. How did it come about . And how did he agree to talk with you . Well, i did a book in 2018 fear, on his first two years, and he did not cooperate. I tried to talk to him. He regretted that he, of course, denounced the book. Said i was a democratic operative. Some people close to him said, oh, by the way, the book is true, and so the president , when i wanted to do the second book, said he would cooperate. I went into the oval office, put my little tape recorder down op the resolute desk and said its all on the record. Im going to record it all, and the book will come out in september or october before the election, and so he i talked to him for 9 hours and 41 minutes. He would call me at home at 10 00 or on the weekends, or i could call. I had a number where i could contact him. So its i guess what i would call a total universe portrait of his thinking about his job, the central issue of the virus, race relations, the economy, the supreme court. We were able to go down every avenue of america. I mean, its really a look at him and he allowed me to push him and come back to questions, and i suspect hes not very happy now, but thats what he said, and thats what i was able to find out from my other reporting. What role did senator Lindsey Graham have in the president speaking to you . Apparently, he told the president , look, he wont put words in your mouth. Youll get a straight shot. Last week the president said, hey, i said some great things in those interviews, and on the book, in the book, i let him have his say entirely. So its its as close, i believe, having done this now for 50 years, that you can ever come to, as an outsider, what was really going on in the white house and the administration on every matter of importance. This is your 20th book, mr. Woodward. How do you know when these former officials are ready to talk . Well, you just keep the old way used to be, go to their homes and knock on the door at night, with the virus you cant do it. So you use the telephone as your entree, and people are home at night, and you can get them on the phone sometimes. Sometimes for extended periods of time. Sometimes for a very, very long interview. Central lesson for me is, people like to talk. Thank god. I think that people are out there no matter what their politics, they are secret sharers in believer, as believers in the first amendment. We want to invite viewers to join in on the conversation. If youre supporting joe biden, and senator harris dial in 2027488000. Supporting President Trump and Vice President pence, 2022488001. Undecided, 2027488002. Mr. Woodward you write in the book in your authors note that evelyn duffy insisted everyone in this book get the fairest truth possible including President Trump and kept her eyes on that prize and worked tirelessly to see it fulfilled. Steve riley insists or verification. Tell us about this process. Theyre my two assistants too, and they were willing to come to my house and work in their offices on my third floor. I have an office on that floor. My wife elsa walsh has an office in the tower. We were a team working together, wearing masks, being as careful as we could, exchanging drafts. Doing transcripts of all of the interviews with trump and with everyone else. Elsa, we didnt have to wear a mask with each other, and we lived our lives, but we lived in that bubble of trump world for ten weeks, for both elsa and myself, and extraordinary time, because we could get not only to trump but we could get to other people in the white house, cabinet officers, people close to the president. Sofia up first in the bronx supporting the former Vice President. Youre on the air with mr. Woodward. Caller thank you. Thank you, mr. Woodward. Are you there . Yes. I am. Caller okay. Hello . Caller first i want to say this 50 years the job youve done. This one, you must get a nobel prize, because if you did not record him, he would have denied. Sir, i voted for him. Im one of the deplorable. I see now the last three weeks, he had all the people, my peo e people he dont feel anything for them. He dont feel anything for us. Even though he admitted to you, sir, in the interview that this is going to be bad. You understand, sir . And i hope you get the nobel prize, because somebody has to make it clear that you are brilliant. If you did not record him, he would have denied. It would have been chaos, and thank you for listening, and i hope he stops the rallies hes going to kill us. Hes going to kill us, sir, and i supported him. Im the deplorabldeplorable, si so pfaokay sofia. Mr. Woodward . First of all i recorded him with his permission. Frankly, when the book came out i wasnt sure i would put out the audios. My wife elsa walsh, jamie gangel at cnn who got the book early, they said, you need to put out audios, and ive done that a couple of times on books, but only in a small way, and they said, no. It was kind of a pincher movement between elsa and jamie to say, no, youve got to do this. The context was, which we know, people dont trust the media. People dont trust much, and so being able to hear it in, with their own ears, hear President Trump say these things, say to me that, hey, look, hes trying to downplay the virus. He doesnt want to cause a panic. The key to all of this, and i start my book with this meeting on january 28th in the oval office when the National Security team, adviser Robert Obrien told President Trump about the virus, said this virus is going to be the biggest, not maybe, will be, is going to be the biggest National Security threat to your presidency. His Deputy Matt Pottinger who had worked in china as a wall street journal reporter during the 2003 pandemic knew that the Chinese Government lied all the time. He had sources in china, and he was able to explain to President Trump, not that, just trouble was coming, but a major pandemic was coming, because he had those contacts, those sources in china in the medical community who would stand up to the Chinese Communist party and the Chinese Government and he said, this is going to be like the 1918 1918 spanish flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people in this country. Carol, royal oak, michigan. Supporting the president. Good morning, carol. Caller hi. Good morning. Hi. Caller im curious, mr. Woodward. Do you like the president as a person . And you know, that hold on. Mr. Woodward hold on. Carol, go ahead and okay. No. Caller allow you to do what you did . You know . The president said, go ahead. Turn the machine on. Do you think youd ever get a democrat to do that . All right, carol. Yes. I have many, many times, president obama. President clinton. So its its a nonpartisan tape recorder, if i may say that, and my approach is aggressively nonpartisan. You asked a very good question at the beginning. Do i like the president . He has, as you know, he can be very charming. He would let me push him. We would sometimes even joke about things, but he knew and i knew this is not a, a joking matter. Everything, particularly the virus and so he has an appeal. My wife also elsa walsh says, well, you know, she listened in on some of these calls, because i would put it on a speaker phone. I told President Trump that. There were some foul language, and at one point President Trump said, i dont want your wife to hear this, or her pretty ears, i think was his term. So i was i was open and listening to him. We started these interviews before the virus. We talked a great deal about his relationship with north korea, and kim jongun and the north korean leader, and i got the letters, the Letter Exchange between them, and President Trump told me, he said, look, weve not had a war, and there was an expectation, maybe we were going to have a nuclear war with north korea, and i i think, and i indeed give him credit on this. Not having a war. I, back in the 1960s, after i got out of college, i served five years in the u. S. Navy, as communications officer, and this was during vietnam. I saw vietnam up close. And the lies of vietnam. And the horror of that war, and so, i give President Trump credit for avoiding a war with north korea. At the same time, relations between trump and kim jongun had broken down now. We dont know where its going. Lots of experts say they dont think trump handled it right. Im agnostic on that. I say, this is what he did. And hes very emphatic with me, in these interviews, that it was a no war strategy. And if you look over all, at the trump administration, weve not had a new war. A lot of people expected we would have one. At the same time, the relations with some countries, trump likes autocratic leaders. He talked to me about that quite openly. And so hes picked leaders like putin to have a Good Relationship with him. With mbs, the crown prince of saudi arabia and his association with kim jongun. Anyway, the positives and the negatives are laid out in the book the best i could. You write about the letters between the leader kim jongun and the president which will he calls love letters. The cia never figured out conclusively who wrote and crafted kims letters to trump. They were masterpieces. The analysts marvelled at the skill someone brought to finding the exact mixture of flattery while pelling it to trumps sense of grandiosity and being center stage. The letters, reaching out for trump, saying we know each other, we can trust each other, were going to be friends for each other. At one point, he talks about, i remember, standing, meeting with you, holding your excellencys hand, and they pledged to each other. As i say in the book, its almost like the knights of the round table. And at the same time, when kim jongun would not deliver on his agreement to get rid of his nuclear weapons, trump pushed him and said, now, look, you gave your word on this. Youre not ready to make a deal. And so, the second meeting which was in hanoi, vietnam, kind of fell apart. We dont know where all of this is going. Its a very dicey situation. Because as i report, kim jongun has dozens, several dozens of nuclear weapons. Theyre probably not, you know, big big busters like some of the missile some of the weapons that we have on our Ballistic Missile submarine. But theyre nuclear weapons. And theyre well concealed and well hidden. And so it is a very real threat that we face from them. Now, historys going to determine, because as carol rowe who is one of george w. Bushs political adviser, and rove said, were talking about the iraq war and the afghan war and other issues, and rove said, look, everything depends on outcomes in politics. And i think thats true. The outcome of the relationship with north korea, we dont know where its going to end. Lets go to carl who is in oxford, massachusetts, and undecided in this election. Go ahead, carl. Caller good morning, thank you for cspan. Mr. Woodward, ive seen you many times on television interviews. I read one of your books a long time ago. I forget the title of it, but im sorry to say, i lost a lot of respect for you after when the iraq war started. Right after it started, many people realized it was based on a lie. And you kind of came out like a couple of years later with a book about that. I think you were on msnbc, if i remember correctly. And to me, you were just a johnny come lately. You know, correct me if im wrong, but thats how i feel. Well, look, i wrote a story for the Washington Post before the iraq war started. In which i quoted a cia official saying they do not have smoking gun intelligence that iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The government, and the cia, believed that they did. But this official told me, we dont have smoking gun intelligence. And i have faulted myself mightily, for not understanding what i wrote in my own newspaper. Because when somebody says we dont have smoking gun intelligence, that means they dont have verifiable information. Theyre not sure, and i, quite frankly, should have realized what i wrote. But i wrote a number of books about the iraq war. The third one was called state of denial in which i reported with documentation and all kinds of interviews that president bush, george w. Bush at the time, was not telling the truth to the American People about how bad the situation was in iraq. It had deteriorated in the years after the 2003 invasion. Christopher. So, youre go ahead, mr. Woodward, finish up. No, i was just going to say the iraq war was really an important turning point. Ive always said i should have been more aggressive about it. But i did report what happened internally. And significantly, the cia director george tenaet went to make a presentation to president bush about whether there were weapons of mass destruction. And the president doubted whether the intelligence was that solid. And george tenet stood up in the oval office and said its a slam dunk, mr. President. It is a slam dunk. And so that was the view at the highest level in the cia, as you may recall, colin powell, then secretary of state, gave that famous speech at the United Nations in which he held up a little bottle. And said, you know, this contains a chemical weapon, and this is what iraq has. Powell has since said it is his most embarrassing his worst moment in his tenure, not only as a military officer, but as secretary of state. So, i should have been more aggressive. I should have been, quite frankly, if that story i cited in the Washington Post, i should have understood when you dont have smoking gun intelligence, you dont youre not sure. And youre going to go to war on that basis anyway. All right. Well go on to christopher in oklahoma supporting the biden harris ticket. Go ahead, christopher. Caller okay. Good morning to you both. And massive respect for just the washington journal in and of itself for us to be able to do it. The last thing i thought id be doing this morning is asking bob woodward a question, okay . Theres been, as we know, over 200,000 deaths to covid19. I want to know personally, do you feel like any responsibility for publicly recalling the information that donald trump initially disclosed to you early on about the virus, like even later on, after it got time for your book to come out . But also in those initial periods, when he was telling you one thing. And then turning right around a week or two later on tv telling all of us the exact opposite. Mr. Woodward. Okay. Its a fair question. And when trump told me on february 7th that he knew the virus was airborne and that it could be transmitted from somebody who has, or didnt have symptoms, and that it was deadly, in fact, more deadly than the flu, we were talking about china. And he had just the evening before had a talk with president xi. And i brought a tack of this paper clipping from my newspaper, the Washington Post and the New York Times. And all through the period of january through february, they were talking about china. I thought trump was talking about china. And it was not until may that i learned that trump had been briefed. And that the centerpiece of this is january 28th, when trump was told by his National Security adviser that the virus, as Robert Obrien put it to the president , is going to be not, as i say may be, but is going to be the biggest National Security threat to your presidency. And his deputy, matt pottinger, laid out information that pottinger had from doctors in china. And i did not know about that meeting until may. And whats interesting about journalism, obviously, reporters like you, sir, we live our lives in chronological order. But you dont report in chronological order. And if i had known what i learned in may, i obviously would have gone and published a story. But i did not know where that was coming from. In the context of my discussion with President Trump its china. When i learned, ah, hes talking what about he was presented on january 28th. And ive learned that by asking in may, President Trump, do you remember that january 28th meeting . And President Trump said, no, he didnt. But then he said, twice, he said, im sure it was said. I am sure it was said. By the that he got that warning from obrien and pottinger. So, by may, even by march, the virus was out of control. Everyone knew it was deadly. My god, in march, all of a sudden, it just came to this country in a way exactly that the president was told. But came to this country, there were 30,000 new cases a day. I was traveling around in early march, going to california, going to florida. I had no idea. Tony fauci who was the leading Infectious Disease official in this country, wellknown on television, was saying on february 29th, oh, go ahead, theres no worry. Go to the mall. Go to the movies, go to the gym. So, there was no way for me i had no information that thats what trump was talking about when i you walk the cat back, and after i learned in may, i realized and i asked the president was that where you got that information . And he said, yes. He knows it was said but obrien. Sounds like a convoluted explanation, but thats exactly what happened. And i still work at the Washington Post as an associate editor. I have access to the editor marty barren, to walk into his office or call him or email him and say, i have information that needs to go in the paper. Over the decades ive done that, dozens and dozens of times, and i would have done it in this case. But i di