Bob Woodward

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, story Monica Pladman and her friend Dan Rathers.

[1] Good theme song.

[2] Thank you.

[3] This is an edition of Experts on Expert.

[4] Thursday.

[5] By the way, I want to just drop a hint that we're putting together a couple more shows, and I'm getting so excited about it.

[6] Hopefully people want to be with us more throughout the week because we got more coming.

[7] Yes.

[8] So today we have, without question, the most legendary journalist to ever live in this country, Bob Woodward.

[9] He is an American investigative journalist.

[10] He started working for the Washington Post as a reporter in 1971 and is currently the associate editor.

[11] In 1972, Woodward and Carl Bernstein famously did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal.

[12] These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Nixon.

[13] He has covered, nine presidents over 50 years.

[14] Now, I do want to say one thing.

[15] This one leans political, but the only thing I would plead to folks to give it a chance is simply that Bob has been critical of both sides.

[16] If there's ever been a journalist who attacked fraudulence and lies on both sides of the aisle, it is Bob.

[17] So he has earned the right for anyone on the right to listen to him, as he has earned the right for anyone the left to listen to him.

[18] Agreed.

[19] His books are Obama's wars.

[20] all the president's men, the brethren inside the Supreme Court, fear Trump in the White House, and his new book, Rage.

[21] So please enjoy Bob Woodward.

[22] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[23] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[24] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[25] How are you?

[26] good.

[27] We're tremendously flattered to be talking to you.

[28] If I can tell you, I think I was seven years old the first time I heard your name.

[29] It was in Fletch.

[30] The commander was yelling at Chevy Chase and he said, this isn't some fucking Woodward and Bernstein bullshit.

[31] And I asked my mom, what is Woodward and Bernstein?

[32] My education started there.

[33] If she let you listen to things like that?

[34] Yeah.

[35] And look, it resulted in a successful career in comedy.

[36] So maybe it was the right move.

[37] Listen, I was looking up something about you, and you talk about the messiness of the human condition or about human beings.

[38] And I wanted to just address that idea, because I think that's exactly right.

[39] Human beings are messy.

[40] And so when you have a president of the United States is super messy, he takes and everything is massive.

[41] And everything is massive.

[42] magnified, a thousandfold, 10 ,000 fold.

[43] So the messiness of that person gets delivered into everyone's life, where if it's just somebody down the street who's messy, you can deal with that.

[44] But in this case, it's all of us.

[45] Well, and I think, too, the thing that we are very interested in, and this comes from me being in recovery, I'm an addict, is I learn a lot more from people's struggles than I learn from their triumphs, right?

[46] You have a lot of awards I'll never achieve, but I'm sure you've stumbled in ways in your life that you could teach me a lot about.

[47] And so that's pretty much my interest.

[48] Mine too.

[49] When you make a mistake, you grow.

[50] When something works out, you've become self -satisfied and smug and arrogant.

[51] Oh, that's me. You just described me to a tea.

[52] If you'll indulge me, we are generally apolitical because we talk about messages that I care more about than politics and I don't want to alienate anyone.

[53] So for anyone that might associate you with Nixon and now this book, they would maybe be inclined if they don't know a lot about you to think that you're somehow a partisan reporter.

[54] And so I just, with your permission, I'd like to outline just a few times that I believe you're just a rigorous searcher of the truth.

[55] And I think you've blasted both sides and that you've been incredibly fair in your reporting over your lifetime.

[56] Well, thank you.

[57] That's nice.

[58] I mean, that's the goal, but I've slipped up a number of times.

[59] But go ahead.

[60] Yeah, so I just wanted to say that obviously you and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal, and that resulted in the resignation of Richard Nixon.

[61] And then since then you've written 19 books.

[62] I guess this is the 20th and, you know, 14 bestsellers.

[63] It's incredibly impressive.

[64] But in 1996, You broke the United States campaign finance controversy, which exposed China's donations to the Democratic National Committee.

[65] So, again, there is a case where whatever your politics are, I don't know, but certainly it didn't prevent you from exposing a truth on my side of the aisle.

[66] And moreover, and this one may embarrass you a little bit, you just said it, we all make mistakes, but you know, you wrote four books in your career about Bush, and there was even a period where you did believe him that they had WMD.

[67] evidence and even publicly stated it.

[68] And I don't say that to embarrass you.

[69] I say that to point out that you are not partisan in your party.

[70] Well, I try not to be.

[71] Take the question of George W. Bush, who invaded Iraq thinking there were weapons of mass destruction.

[72] This is 2003.

[73] Before the invasion, I wrote a front page story in the Washington Post, quoting a CIA source saying, we do not have smoking gun intelligence that there is WMD in Iraq.

[74] Now, I did not realize what I had written, because if you say there's not smoking gun intelligence, that means you don't have hard intelligence.

[75] That means you're not sure.

[76] And I should have realized what somebody was saying to me, and I failed miserably on that front.

[77] And if I would just, just have read and understood my own words, where I was quoting somebody, I would have then converted the story, and it would have been uncertainty about WMD in Iraq before the invasion.

[78] And now, would it have made any difference, God knows.

[79] But it's a really wonderful thing to be in journalism, and you learn, and I haven't been fired, yet because there is a realization there's what's called good faith fuck up and then there's a bad faith fuck up and a good faith fuck up is that where I didn't realize what I was being told I didn't realize what I had written and all the editors at the Washington Post who are very smart one of them could have come over to me and tap me on the shoulder and say hey Do you realize what you're saying here?

[80] This is a GFF, a good faith fuck -up.

[81] That's a perfect term for us to use as we get into this because I am curious what your takeaways are on some of the fuck -ups that have happened.

[82] But again, I just want to put one more pin on your chest as far as your bipartisanism is that you also are critical of the Obama administration for their role in the United States federal budget sequester.

[83] And again, I just think it's really relevant.

[84] I'm sure you loved Obama, I loved Obama, but I don't think that stood in the way of you wanting to expose the truth.

[85] And so I just want to go into this setting up the fact that I have to imagine as you started this project, well, I suppose it started with fear, your first book about Trump.

[86] Yes, right.

[87] In 2018.

[88] Did you enter that process?

[89] You couldn't live on planet Earth and not have an opinion about Trump.

[90] That wouldn't be possible.

[91] But you must have some safeguards that you have, some system that keeps you objective.

[92] And I'm really curious how that operates in your mind.

[93] Okay, I'm going to bring my wife in here.

[94] She is my safeguard.

[95] We live this all together.

[96] She added the new book, Rage, six times.

[97] Can you imagine that?

[98] She'd listened to Trump calling me on a weekend or 10 o 'clock at night because he would call spontaneously.

[99] I had to carry my little tape.

[100] recorder around.

[101] So I wouldn't miss an opportunity to record the call because I told Trump, that's what I was going to do.

[102] This was all on the record.

[103] And so the first time she picked up the phone and a voice said, is Bob there?

[104] And Elsa said, yes, who's calling?

[105] Said Donald Trump.

[106] And she said, oh, Mr. President, I'll get him.

[107] And so we had these conversations.

[108] And she would listen frequently.

[109] And if you've gone through the book, one of the times in early April, I'd done some reporting and realized that experts were telling me that it was important for Trump to launch a full -scale mobilization of the country on the virus.

[110] There were 14 areas, including testing, international cooperation, vaccines, and so forth.

[111] And I went through it.

[112] And I went through, it with him and Elsa's listening.

[113] And she said to me at the end, she said, you're shouting at him and it sounds like you're telling him what to do.

[114] Elsa said, you know, you're not supposed to tell him what to do, which is true.

[115] We developed the kind of relationship where I could push him and I could say things that I think his staff could not say to him.

[116] When you're interacting with them first, when you say you get a call from the president, my first thought is like, I panic when the food delivery calls and I'm nervous, I'm going to lose signal.

[117] So I can't even imagine what the anxiety of your signal service is, just being on with the president.

[118] But secondly, you must always be trying to ride the line of being direct and getting the info you want and also not turning off your subject so that they are no longer interested in talking to you.

[119] I almost feel like it's almost a romantic relationship of pursuing and then laying off.

[120] So is there a dance there with when you feel like you could make those assertions and when you feel like, well, I still want to be able to talk to him?

[121] Well, yes, but I think he decided because he denounced my first book fear and said it's pure fiction and said I'm a democratic operative.

[122] And then people who work for him, a couple of them said, you know, Mr. President, it's all true.

[123] And Trump said it's all, it's true.

[124] Gee, I should have talked to him for that book, which he didn't.

[125] So I'll talk to him for this book.

[126] And so he agreed to do it.

[127] I said, it's going to all be on the record.

[128] I'm recording it.

[129] The book will come out before the election.

[130] And I think there's something in him that wants to be pushed, quite frankly.

[131] I think because he's a one -man band, his president, the chief of staff can kind of say, well, wait a minute, should we do, and Trump will go.

[132] No, that's what we're doing.

[133] Or he'll tweet it out all with no meeting, no discussion.

[134] So it was, you know, I'm not a psychiatrist.

[135] I will not attempt to be, but there's some gravitational pull.

[136] For instance, okay, the last call was a month ago, August 14th.

[137] The book was done.

[138] And he called unexpectedly.

[139] And Elsa came in and she said, it's the White House.

[140] It's President Trump wants to talk to you.

[141] And the book was done.

[142] And so I went, oh, no, God.

[143] He's calling again.

[144] I can't turn it down.

[145] So we get on the line.

[146] And I said, the book's closed.

[147] said, can't we get something about the Israeli US -U -A -R peace agreement?

[148] Because it's significant.

[149] And I agree.

[150] It's significant.

[151] I said, the book's closed.

[152] It's printed.

[153] It's done.

[154] But I need to tell you that it's a tough book.

[155] I'm going to make some judgments that you don't like.

[156] And he said, well, like what?

[157] And I said, well, just, you know, I didn't want to get specific and have an argument, but I wanted to kind of, it's a kind of Miranda warning that what we've done, maybe you're not going to like completely.

[158] I brought up something about the coronavirus.

[159] I said, that's such a big deal.

[160] The election's going to be about the virus, in my view.

[161] And he said, you really think that?

[162] What about the economy?

[163] And I said, they're related, as you know.

[164] And he said, well, a little bit.

[165] And I said, a little bit.

[166] And he said, well, no, a lot.

[167] And then at the end, he said, looks like I'm not going to get you on this book.

[168] I'll get you on the next one.

[169] I heard it on 60 Minutes here.

[170] It was a great segment on you.

[171] And yes, this very jovial attempt to say, like, there might still be light at the end of this tunnel.

[172] It is a very, I feel, revealing aspect of his personality.

[173] But please continue.

[174] So we hung up, it's going to be tough.

[175] And so long.

[176] And then an hour and a half later, he tweeted out the Bob Woodward's, book is going to be fake.

[177] So at least he heard me. He didn't tune out.

[178] He tuned in.

[179] Yeah.

[180] Okay.

[181] Let's walk through.

[182] First of all, I'm reading the book right now.

[183] I am not finished, but I absolutely love it.

[184] Forget whatever interest I had.

[185] Trump himself, learning about, you know, James Mattis and Rex Tillerson.

[186] People, I didn't really know how they came to be a part of that organization and learning, you know, a good deal about them.

[187] They're very fascinating, interesting characters.

[188] When he asked Rex Tillerson to become the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who did not necessarily desire that post, said, I want to look him in the face and ask him three questions.

[189] And one was, I got to choose my team.

[190] Will you let me choose my team?

[191] The other one was, you know, I got to get a promise you're not going to withdraw your nomination.

[192] And then the last was, I don't ever want to be in a public feud with you.

[193] If we have an issue, I want to handle it privately.

[194] And I'm curious, how did those three things turn out?

[195] What happened, Tillerson was offered the job in a meeting that he had with Trump, and he called his wife, and he said, you won't believe what happened.

[196] And she said, he offered you Secretary of State.

[197] And he said, how did you know that?

[198] He said, well, because I knew that, you know, it was, you were kind of bored.

[199] He was just leaving, being head of ExxonMobil.

[200] Actually, his successor was picked.

[201] He was going out.

[202] He and his wife have a horse farm outside of Dallas, and boy, they're going to ride those horses.

[203] And so he thinks, you know, maybe I better take this, John.

[204] This is number one cabinet job.

[205] He really told me, he would give me his cell phone.

[206] He would be available anytime.

[207] But there are three things, the three things you said, I want his word on.

[208] So he told this to incoming chief of staff, Reins Prebus, and Prebus said, well, what are they?

[209] And Tillerson said, no, I want to talk to the president -elect directly.

[210] So he went up to Trump Tower and laid them out to Trump and said, no problem at all.

[211] Now, he really did let him pick his team in a way, but, you know, it was never complete.

[212] He did not withdraw Tillerson's nomination, but they had endless public feuds, which are extending to today, where Trump fired him by tweet, and then publicly went out and said, he's dumb as a rock.

[213] And now, look, you can make your judgments of people.

[214] When you bring them out of the position of having hundreds of millions of dollars, I guess Tillerson was worth and say at the end of your career, I want you to take another job.

[215] And what Tillerson reasoned, he had never served his country in the military.

[216] And he felt guilty about it.

[217] And he said, now this is an opportunity.

[218] I'm going to do it.

[219] So he said, yes.

[220] And he got these pledges personally from Trump.

[221] And then Trump, you know, just crushes him and excoriates him publicly.

[222] And the aversion of this happens to so many people who work for Trump.

[223] And it's hazardous duty.

[224] It's always hazardous duty being Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Dan Coates, Head of Intelligence.

[225] But they all are people, like Coates, a Republican senator from Indiana for 16 years, evangelical Christian.

[226] He and his wife, Marsha, oh, boy, we're going to retirement.

[227] And Pence, who was one of his friends from Indiana, the vice president -elect said, do you want a job?

[228] And Coates said, no, I don't want a job.

[229] Well, come talk to the president -elect.

[230] So he comes and talks, and they say, we're going to offer you the number one intelligence job.

[231] Well, that's the Trump inner circle.

[232] That's dealing with the state secrets.

[233] It's overseeing the CIA, National Security Agency.

[234] It's a wonderful job.

[235] In fact, Obama wants said to me when I was doing an interview with Obama, I had so much time to dig out what Obama had done about the war in Afghanistan and so forth.

[236] So I knew a lot because of time.

[237] And at the end, Obama said, have you ever thought of becoming CIA director or head of intelligence?

[238] And I said, I know that's not a job offer.

[239] And he said, no, it's not a job offer.

[240] So is a tempting job.

[241] So Coates took it.

[242] And the way Trump treated him, Dan Coates is somebody, he's got a moral and religious center to him.

[243] And whether you like that or agree with that.

[244] Well, that was almost weaponized against these guys.

[245] So even when you bring up Rex, right, his wife also said, God's got bigger plans for you, right?

[246] There is part of this, you know, a commitment to serving the country, a commitment to, you know, his God, as he understands.

[247] understands him.

[248] And James Mattis, right?

[249] He, I don't think he personally wanted that job, but he, as he said, he is committed to working for the Constitution, to defending the Constitution.

[250] So there's this higher calling that trumps whatever, well, not pun intended, trumps whatever reservations they have.

[251] So these men are generally making really principled decisions to join this team.

[252] He understands the buttons on somebody's psychological console.

[253] and he knows you're going to serve the country.

[254] We're going to have direct access.

[255] You'll have my cell phone number.

[256] We're never going to have a public dispute.

[257] We're going to do this right.

[258] And people are coming in and saying, wow, this is an opportunity of a lifetime.

[259] And what they quickly discover is there's no plan.

[260] There's no organization.

[261] Trump is this one -man band who will sit and decide, I mean, it's almost like part of his mind is a roulette wheel.

[262] You don't know what number is going to come up.

[263] He's going to say, oh, I'll take the green one or I'll take double zero.

[264] And it drives people who are rational, crazy.

[265] And I quote Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, saying, what's interesting about this is that the people who believe in Trump don't believe what he says, but they still believe in him.

[266] Oh, I was just going to say, yes, I do think people underestimate the importance, value, and reality of an emotional truth.

[267] So there is, there is an objective factual layer that we're incorporating into living, but then we're also very emotional human beings, and we want to discount that, and I think it's an error to do so.

[268] So something emotionally feels true, and I'm not one to try to argue that point with anyone.

[269] If I may say, you use this phrase, emotional truth.

[270] It's a household word around here.

[271] My wife, Elsa, she used to work for The Post.

[272] She was a staff writer for the New Yorker for years.

[273] And she wrote a book called Divided Lives about three women who are pulled to family job, family job, and you are divided and split.

[274] And Elsa talks about you not only have to get the facts of somebody's life.

[275] You have to get the emotional truth.

[276] This is the term she uses.

[277] I teach a journalism seminar each second semester.

[278] I didn't this year because I had to do the book.

[279] And Elsa comes for one session and the title of the class is emotional truth.

[280] And it's something you've got to understand how it drives people.

[281] It may be rational.

[282] It may be irrational.

[283] It may be irrational.

[284] It may be something Dr. Freud would love to examine.

[285] It may be something.

[286] Dr. Freud would love to examine.

[287] It may be something You know, it's rosebud.

[288] Yeah, oh, 100%.

[289] If you really quantified everyone's life and you had at the end of their life a table of how many decisions were made based on facts and how many were based on emotions, I have to imagine it's weighted in the emotional decision making.

[290] That's just what we do.

[291] Of course.

[292] And we've got to face it.

[293] And this is why your idea of it's messy being human.

[294] In the case of Trump, it's a bigger mess.

[295] It's a bigger inconsistency.

[296] The last line in the book is that Trump is the wrong man for the job as president.

[297] And this is based on this overwhelming evidence that came from my reporting and quite frankly came from him.

[298] I grabbed something from the book for you that I just wanted to read.

[299] And this has to do with Senator Graham, who is the senator from South Carolina, chairman of the Judiciary Committee now in the Senate.

[300] He's the one who's leading the confirmation hearings that Trump's going to appoint somebody to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg seat.

[301] This has exploded political Washington in a significant way.

[302] Graham is often people say, oh, he's a tody.

[303] He's Trump's best friend.

[304] I found in my reporting, again, because I have the time to go back to people and check that Graham actually has some good observation.

[305] and advice for Trump.

[306] So this is June 14th.

[307] So three months ago, after George Floyd was killed by a white police officer and the whole Black Lives Matter uprising and so forth that defines so much of what's going on right now.

[308] And one of Trump's responses was, as you may recall, when he walked out of the White House and had the street cleared of peaceful protesters by the military in a really heavy -handed way.

[309] And Trump walks out and waves a Bible in front of the church.

[310] He knew every step of the way, but he had not thought of what does he do once he gets there.

[311] That was very clear as an actor that he was out of lines in writing once he arrived.

[312] Yes, and didn't he hold the Bible upside down or something like that?

[313] We'll give him a break.

[314] It was his first time holding.

[315] So Lippet Graham is talking to Trump and saying, you know, waving the Bible doesn't work.

[316] And I quote Graham saying, quote, I've never been more worried than I am right now.

[317] Trump could have chosen three ways to respond to the racial unrest triggered unleashed by George Floyd's killing.

[318] Could have chosen George Wallace, you know, the segregationist, governor in Alabama, or he could have chosen the Bobby Kennedy route of dealing with racial unrest, or he could have chosen the Richard Nixon.

[319] And the Nixon was law and order.

[320] Bobby Kennedy was, you know, we need to have racial healing in this country.

[321] And George Wallace was more segregation.

[322] And so right now, Lindsay Graham says that you have chosen the George Wallace way, you have taken the segregation route.

[323] And I quote him saying, right now, if the election were held, you would lose.

[324] Now, this is in June.

[325] So you have racial unrest, and there are things in the book, I quote, where Trump doesn't understand the pain and anger that black people feel.

[326] Yeah.

[327] Can I pause for one second?

[328] Because I thought it was amazing.

[329] You first asked him if he does believe that there is systemic racism in this nation.

[330] And he says, yes, well, it's everywhere and it's probably not as bad here as other places, but yes.

[331] Yes, there is.

[332] So first, I've never heard him say that publicly.

[333] But he does, he has the capacity to say it to you.

[334] So I'm shocked when I hear him say that to you.

[335] But then you say, do you recognize that you and myself have a great deal of privilege growing up white and of means and that we have been in a cave of privilege and that it is time for us to exit that cage and understand the pain and anguish that the black people in this country are going through and he says no and he thinks it's silly that you would want to see well even more played that his response i said do you understand the pain and anger that black people feel and he goes wow you really drank the Kool -Aid, didn't you, Bob?

[336] You drank the Kool -Aid.

[337] Just listen to yourself.

[338] And he mocks me for trying to understand from the point of view of white privilege what other people are feeling.

[339] And he said, no, I don't feel that way at all.

[340] And then he runs around and says, oh, I've done more for black people than any president other than Abraham Lincoln.

[341] Yeah.

[342] He loves saying that.

[343] And he says it, and it's absurd.

[344] Remember Lyndon Johnson in the Civil Rights Act?

[345] Remember what Lyndon Johnson did for racial equality and opportunity in this country?

[346] Yeah.

[347] One thing with Trump leads to another leads to another.

[348] So I'm talking to him about the Supreme Court decision extending the Civil Rights Act to LGBT.

[349] people in this country.

[350] And it was written by Gorsuch, who's Trump's appointee, one conservative appointee, said, what do you think about Gorsuch?

[351] Your guy writing this.

[352] And it's against the administration's position.

[353] You're in the Supreme Court saying just the opposite.

[354] And Trump says, well, I want him to rule the way he feels.

[355] And I said, okay, I've thought about this, President Trump.

[356] I was thinking that if you were on the Supreme Court, you would have voted for that also because you believe in freedom, freedom for people.

[357] So I think if you've been on the court, you would have been voting with Gorsuch.

[358] And he says, wow, that's an interesting idea.

[359] And I said, well, maybe you can appoint yourself to the Supreme Court, which he could do.

[360] And he said, oh, well, I care about everyone.

[361] I care about all people.

[362] Stay tuned for more Firechair expert, if you dare.

[363] What's up, guys?

[364] This your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good, and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[365] Every episode, I bring a friend and have a real conversation.

[366] And I don't mean just friends.

[367] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[368] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[369] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[370] We've all been there.

[371] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[372] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing.

[373] but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery, like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[374] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[375] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[376] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[377] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[378] Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music.

[379] Well, okay, now I am going to ask you to be a little bit of a psychologist, and only because you know them more than I do in these conversations.

[380] But I just want to lay out a couple things that I'm trying to figure out.

[381] So one is when Mattis comes to meet with him, he makes a case to end torturing as a means of getting information.

[382] And he makes the most beautiful point.

[383] And he says, you know what, forget about the suspected terrorists.

[384] I'm not even appealing to you to worry about them.

[385] The damage it does to us to torture people is unacceptable.

[386] It makes us worse.

[387] In the FBI or the Marine Corps or something like you then are inflicting pain.

[388] And inflicting pain, that does something to your mind.

[389] It perverts it, and we should not do it for that reason.

[390] Right.

[391] And then he goes on to explain the immense value of being a member of NATO and reminds him that the whole reason that we had a coalition to go into Afghanistan after we were attacked was because of NATO.

[392] And so now in that meeting, he concedes to those points.

[393] He seems to be swayed by that or acknowledge that.

[394] And then again, it happens with Rex Tillerson.

[395] And when Tillerson explains what's going on with Russia and what's going on with China, it seems as if Trump is like, okay, great, thanks for explaining that to me, I'm taking it.

[396] So my question for you, and this goes to the, yes, there's systemic racism, but no, I don't need to be empathetic.

[397] My question is, is he lying in the moment that he doesn't actually agree with those points and he's just paying lip service to those people?

[398] or is he someone that just oscillates regularly between in that moment?

[399] Yes, he agreed.

[400] And then on another day, he doesn't.

[401] That's what I really want to know about him.

[402] Okay.

[403] There's lots of oscillation.

[404] That's a nice word.

[405] It means you don't have a moral center or you don't have an institutional or a pragmatic center.

[406] So what happens and all of this gets seen after seen in the book where Trump, is meeting with his national security team about NATO or South Korea, where we have 32 ,000 troops.

[407] And he says to the general, he said, we're suckers.

[408] We're paying for 32 ,000 troops of our troops in South Korea to protect them from North Korea.

[409] They should pay the bill.

[410] This is wasted money.

[411] And they say, no, no, Mr. President, this is the best money.

[412] we spend.

[413] It's an insurance policy.

[414] It's cheap.

[415] He thinks it's $10 billion in South Korea.

[416] It's actually $1 billion, and we get lots of side benefits.

[417] I quote Pompeo, the now Secretary of State, saying that the troops we have in South Korea are very important because it protects North Korea from China.

[418] China would like to control North Korea, and our troops there are actually some hindrance and blockage.

[419] So time and time again, this comes up about NATO, South Korea.

[420] And part of it, I don't say this in the book, but I will say it here because I've been able to think about the book and talk to people.

[421] Trump thinks he's the chief financial officer of the country.

[422] And he said, we're suckers, we need to get more money.

[423] I just got another billion dollars from South Korea.

[424] I'm getting the NATO countries to spend more on their defense, which they are.

[425] It's true.

[426] But it's not about dollars and cents.

[427] It's about you have, I think it's Article 5 in the NATO agreement, attack on one country is an attack on all.

[428] It's a joint defense.

[429] It's a joint defense.

[430] It is one of the most successful treaties in the history of the world.

[431] And it has worked.

[432] There is a kind of confidence.

[433] After the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia has been threatening on some things and Putin, you know, in comes NATO and says, uh -uh, we aren't going to let you do this.

[434] We're going to send troops there or we are going to speak with collective resolve.

[435] and Trump does not comprehend what the interest of the United States is, not to get $500 million more.

[436] And he's obsessed with this in the conversations I had.

[437] Some of them are in the book, but hey, Bob, didn't I tell you, you know, I'm going to get a billion dollars more from South Korea.

[438] And can I add that I actually respect that he's very fiscally minded.

[439] And I do respect that the right is very fiscally minded.

[440] But what I don't respect is the ignoring that the Afghanistan war is in the trillions and that the reason we have these expenditures is to prevent us from spending trillions down the line that could it be that he doesn't understand the ounce of prevention's worth a pound to cure model?

[441] I'm fine with him being fiscally motivated.

[442] I'm a little concerned that he doesn't see the enormous fiscal win of preventing a large -scale war?

[443] Not only a fiscal win, but a strategic national security win, because the argument in Afghanistan is what happened when we pulled out a long time ago, the Taliban took over, and they gave home and sustenance to al -Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden launched an attack on the United States from Afghanistan.

[444] And so what the military people, intelligence people, diplomats say to the president and said, this is an insurance policy.

[445] We have 10 ,000 troops there, benefit with, you know, we all spend money on insurance, right?

[446] And if at the end of 10 years, you say, why did I have that insurance that was wasted money?

[447] But if you needed it, it could make all the difference in the world.

[448] So he doesn't think that way.

[449] And they had to beat on his head and say, no, no, don't do this.

[450] In one of the interviews I did with President Trump about South Korea, and South Korea is important in all of this.

[451] And he said, we're paying for them.

[452] We allow them to exist.

[453] Now think about that.

[454] that we, an ally that we've had since the 50s, since the armistice after the Korean War.

[455] Our only foothold of democracy and capitalism in a rapidly becoming communist section of the world in the 50s.

[456] You know, it's like you have a friend and you help them and then they help you.

[457] And you say, we're going to be friends for life.

[458] We're going to protect each other.

[459] Look out for each other's interests.

[460] If we have a disagreement, we're going to say it.

[461] We're going to air it.

[462] And think of the world that has existed in this century, the 21st century.

[463] We had the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars, but we've not had other wars.

[464] We haven't had major war to Trump's credit.

[465] He has not had a war himself.

[466] He told me repeatedly, he said, like with North Korea, he agreed to meet with Kim Jong -ung, the leader who has dozens of nuclear weapons.

[467] And I asked the president, I remember, said, well, you know, the foreign policy establishment thinks you met with Kim Jong -ong, and traditionally you send people from the state department, you work out in an agreement, you're going to have a communique, you're going to and so forth.

[468] And I said, so people think you jump the gun on this.

[469] And he said to me, he said, Bob, I gave him a fucking meeting.

[470] That's what I gave Jong -ung a fucking meeting.

[471] And it took me two days.

[472] And I established this relationship.

[473] I wasn't critical of that.

[474] I just want to say in the same way that I wasn't critical of Obama saying I'll talk to Dimajad from Iran.

[475] Like the right wanted to say, you can't talk to Iran.

[476] I thought, no, everyone should be talking.

[477] So I actually wasn't critical of him.

[478] I agree.

[479] But the relationship with Kim Jong -ung is not good now.

[480] It's deteriorated.

[481] But in his eloquent way, said, no fucking war.

[482] Right?

[483] And so we're going to see over the coming years is that work.

[484] Trump talks and in these letters that I have back and forth between them, which are extraordinary.

[485] Trump feels he has, he said to me, said, Kim tells me everything.

[486] I know what going on.

[487] He was about to go to start the war.

[488] And Trump says he stopped him.

[489] Now, Pompeo, Secretary of State heard the same thing from Kim, but he doesn't know whether it's a bluff.

[490] Trump is sure it's not a bluff.

[491] So we're going to see.

[492] So he did something different.

[493] See, here's, here's a problem I've got.

[494] So many people, say Trump breaks norms.

[495] He does what's not traditional.

[496] And from the time he was elected, it said, no, wait a minute.

[497] He was elected to break norms.

[498] People counted on him to break norms and to sit in kind of, oh, this is not traditional.

[499] This is not normal.

[500] Trump is not going to be that way.

[501] The question is all of these things get measured by outcomes, don't they?

[502] remember one of George Bush's close advisors saying to me said, you know, everything depends on outcomes.

[503] And it does in the end.

[504] And so we're going to see what happens to some of these things.

[505] So I had a very good friend of mine write me an email saying, you know, Trump's the leadership, the irrationality, the failure to plan, the failure to have a moral, compass and so forth is tragic.

[506] But he said, well, Trump has done some good things.

[507] I agree.

[508] And this is not one dimensional.

[509] A friend of mine once said years ago, I remember I was looking into a lawyer and I was trying to get some background.

[510] I had a friend in Houston, Texas.

[511] Said, well, so what do you think?

[512] And he said, hmm, like all of us, he's a mixed bag.

[513] Yeah.

[514] I'm kind of of this.

[515] same opinion.

[516] At least I really try to make a case for the things I think he's done well.

[517] I at least attempt to.

[518] But I want to just go through, and it's in the book, the price paid for his fiscal -minded objective.

[519] Do you think the early stages of the outbreak in China would have gone differently had we not been in such a contentious situation over all the trade deals?

[520] Do you think if we had had a more amicable recent history with them that they would have accepted our offer of sending epidemiologists and stuff there?

[521] Do you think that we paid a price?

[522] No, no, because they were covering up the virus in China.

[523] Remember, at one point, I think this was in January, China locked down 768 million people in Wuhan and all through China.

[524] Now, that's twice the population of the United States.

[525] And when China locks things down, that means if you live in an apartment, they lock you in.

[526] That means serious lockdown.

[527] It's not, oh, it's okay to go to the grocery store.

[528] You're locked down and somebody's going to go to the grocery store for you and so forth.

[529] What happened in this is it took me a lot of months of reporting to discover the key.

[530] moment, and I open my book with this, is January 28, top secret meeting in the Oval Office and President Trump's National Security Advisor, Robert O 'Brien, the Intel briefer, is in there talking about the virus in China and saying they're watching it, and O 'Brien says, Mr. President, this virus is going to be the biggest, not maybe, this is going to be the biggest national security threat to your presidency.

[531] His deputy, Matt Pottinger, who could almost if you design somebody to be in that job at this moment, who'd been a Wall Street Journal reporter in China for seven years and knew the Chinese lied, had deep throats in China who told him the pandemic is coming.

[532] And this, you know, we went through this.

[533] It was all laid out to Trump, and he, instead of telling the population, he ignored it and worried about a panic and worried about being reelected.

[534] And when all of this is written for history, 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now, they're going to look back on that meeting, that moment.

[535] And this was the beginning of the tragedy for America that has led to.

[536] to 200 ,000 people have died.

[537] And some of this clearly could have been averted by telling the truth and going to the American people.

[538] So it is a staggering act of malfeasance.

[539] It is a staggering failure to be human.

[540] It is a staggering moral failure.

[541] And what's happened, this has gone on for so long, oh, another thousand people died.

[542] A thousand people died.

[543] A year ago, if a thousand people died in a factory explosion in Detroit or anywhere in the United States, it would be news for weeks.

[544] Well, that's nearly half the victims of 9 -11.

[545] So we know how we felt about that.

[546] Now, here is a place that I want to attempt to give benefit of the doubt.

[547] So here is what I feel like I could be empathetic towards, which is a mass panic and the potential downturn in the economy are going to have collateral damage that also will result in deaths.

[548] And again, to your point, 40 years from now, we'll know those numbers.

[549] We're definitely going to be paying prices in other areas.

[550] So I do see the incentive to downplay it as to prevent panic as to prevent a collapse in the economy, so on and so forth.

[551] I don't think you'd have to be a monster to value.

[552] You know, you the economy as something more than just money, but all the many things it affects in our health.

[553] No, that's true.

[554] You've got to balance.

[555] You documented him knowing the severity, and that's really important.

[556] You have documentation of him in January, February, understanding that it was the Spanish flu, understanding that it was five times as dangerous and lethal as influenza.

[557] So that's to me where it starts getting broken down.

[558] And I start feeling like even if you had that incentive, one of the things it tells me is that you have a very low opinion of the populace that you can handle this truth but that we wouldn't be able to handle it that we will start running mad in the streets and lighting things on fire so there's there is a declaration of his assessment of us in some way by thinking we can't handle that yes this is the failure to understand who we are and who we are I'm an optimist about the country I remember after 9 -11 I did four books on George W. Bush.

[559] And George W. Bush, after 9 -11, 3 ,000 people killed.

[560] And a surprise.

[561] He actually, six weeks before, had been warned in the top secret briefing to him from the intelligence community that bin Laden was determined to strike in the U .S. And he should have acted.

[562] And he paid a price for that, but at least after the attack, he stepped up and he said, okay, we're going to pay them back.

[563] We will strike at a time of our choosing.

[564] He rallied the country.

[565] He rallied the Congress.

[566] All of the work he did, I'm sending troops into Afghanistan.

[567] You know, the first American troops into Afghanistan in 2001 were led by a colonel.

[568] You know his name, James Mattis.

[569] I had the great pleasure of meeting him on a USO tour in Afghanistan.

[570] Yeah, incredible man. Once the thing became bigger than him, how is it that his own shortcomings as a person now start to exponentially ramp up, not being able to handle it?

[571] and I specifically mean the doing his own thing, the governing on his own, how does that now come to play into his handling of the pandemic?

[572] Well, it's no better.

[573] I mean, it's going to get worse.

[574] All the doctors say it will converge with the regular flu, and it is a train that is running, you know, at an incredible speed, and it's probably going to run faster.

[575] He's not organized.

[576] Now, let's look at what is the obligation of the leader of the president when he gets that information on January 28th.

[577] He should say, wow, this is on my head, my shoulders.

[578] Let's get all of the people in who are experts.

[579] Let's get Tony Fauci in.

[580] Let's get the Secretary of Defense.

[581] Let's get Homeland Security.

[582] Let's get the smartest people around and let's say, how do we act in a way to protect the American people?

[583] But there's no meeting.

[584] There's a cover up.

[585] There's denial.

[586] There is refusal.

[587] And then in March, when the virus hit us like a, you know, bang, it was just over a few days in early March.

[588] I remember I was traveling to the West Coast.

[589] to Florida, March 6th and 7th.

[590] And my wife and daughter, Elsa, and our daughter, Diana, went to Morocco during that period and thought, you know, everything's fine.

[591] And I was at a speech in California.

[592] And I had copies of my book, Fear, then, to sign for hundreds of people.

[593] and somebody said, you better wear some gloves, rubber gloves.

[594] So I got my gloves out and put them on.

[595] And I realized soon, within a day or two, there are 30 ,000 new cases in the U .S. Trump gave a speech, an Oval Office evening speech, took it seriously.

[596] But then again, kind of said, oh, it's going to be fine, everything's going to be okay, kind of brushed it off.

[597] Instead, of saying, I mean, he did some serious things.

[598] He restricted travel from China.

[599] He set up a task force to look at this, but he didn't put it all together in his own mind.

[600] And you know, for your show here, to do this, right?

[601] Do you have a team of technicians?

[602] How many people?

[603] Sadly, you've met all of us.

[604] You're looking at Monica and you're looking at me. Or a nimble machine.

[605] It's three.

[606] It's not one, right?

[607] That's right.

[608] And if he'd even had three and where we got everything together and said, hey, let's work on this, let's do this.

[609] And the evidence in the book that I was able to find is overwhelming.

[610] In January, Matt Pottinger talked with Tony Fauci and laid out in truncated form what he knew that a pandemic was coming.

[611] And I quote Fauci in the book saying, oh, I thought Matt was over the moon on this and exaggerating in January.

[612] And then when it hit in March, Fauci is quoted saying, oh, my God, Matt was right all along.

[613] The same with Dr. Redfield, the head of the CDC.

[614] One of the also not as well known as Fauci, but a renowned doctor and cares about the country.

[615] Last week, Redfield has 23 ,000 people who work for him in the CDC, including contractors.

[616] He's testifying under oath in Congress, and he gets the mask out.

[617] And he says, a mask is more important than a vaccine.

[618] This can save your life.

[619] Later in the day, Trump's having his press conference.

[620] This is last week.

[621] And he says, oh, I heard what Dr. Redfield said.

[622] and I called him up, he said he's confused and doesn't know what he's talking about and just crushed him.

[623] And it's untrue.

[624] I mean, Redfield knows what he's talking about.

[625] And, you know, again, this is kind of not a big headline, but it should.

[626] The president coming out in saying, you know, they have all this work they've done on auto safety.

[627] I think seatbelts are optional.

[628] Come on.

[629] Or I'll only wear it when I'm drunk.

[630] He would be, he would be forced to resign if he said that.

[631] A mask is the equivalent of a seatbelt and an insurance policy.

[632] And you have everyone saying this, knowing this, but see, what's happened, we've become kind of anesthetized to this.

[633] We have been numbed.

[634] Oh, well, a thousand people died.

[635] Oh, there's a controversy about masks.

[636] There's a controversy about this.

[637] And then along comes the Supreme Court opportunity, which Trump, I have things in the book and we put out the tapes of this about the Supreme Court working with Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader.

[638] And Trump, I quote in the book and we played this tape.

[639] And Trump says to me, Mitch, Mitch is interested in one thing, getting judges.

[640] Mitch tells me if we're going to get 10 ambassadors confirmed in the Senate, do the one judge, please.

[641] And Trump's spouting numbers to me with enthusiasm.

[642] He's exaggerated numbers, but he's going to get a lot of appointments.

[643] He has over 200 now.

[644] He says 300.

[645] So at one point, I said, we've released the tape on this.

[646] And I said, so Mr. President, I think you've got so many judges that are going to put a statue of you outside the Supreme Court.

[647] And I'm laughing.

[648] And Trump says, what a good idea.

[649] What a great idea.

[650] We'll do it tomorrow.

[651] Oh, but I won't tell people that it's coming from me. Oh, my goodness.

[652] Okay.

[653] So I want you to try to, again, I'm going to ask you to play psychiatrist a little bit.

[654] Would you chalk all of this up to incompetence?

[655] Is that what it is?

[656] Is it just too much for him to handle?

[657] Or is there a more nefarious objective?

[658] Or it may be just a more self -serving narcissistic objective.

[659] How do you explain it?

[660] All roads lead to re -election.

[661] See, Trump knows that in our political culture, successful presidents are reelected, right?

[662] Yeah.

[663] was reelected, Bush was reelected, Obama was reelected, and you can criticize all of them.

[664] Somebody like George Herbert Walker, Bush, was not reelected.

[665] Jimmy Carter was not reelected, and they're kind of, that's the dust heap.

[666] Especially for him, that's the losers.

[667] Yeah, that's the loser.

[668] And so he wants to win in such a way that he's committed everything to it.

[669] And he has lost.

[670] sight of his over, I mean, he, look, president, I've done nine presidents.

[671] Ken Burns told me some time ago, he said, you realize you've written about for the Washington Post in books on nine presidents.

[672] That's 20 % of the presidents we've had.

[673] And it's wild.

[674] And I said, yeah, I am that old.

[675] Thanks for pointing it out.

[676] When you, you know, when you cover a baseball team, for 50 years, which I've almost done with the presidency.

[677] You see certain characteristics.

[678] You learn about how the manager makes a difference, how the pitcher makes a difference.

[679] Stay tuned for more, I'm a chair expert, if you dare.

[680] When you cover the presidency, you have the opportunity to try to think about it.

[681] And one of the things that just hit me like cream pie in the face is the extraordinary power presidents have.

[682] They have the megaphone, they have the microphone, they are moral leaders in foreign affairs.

[683] You know, they decide.

[684] Joe Biden really can't go abroad as a presidential candidate because they'll say he's trying to do the president's job.

[685] And the Constitution makes it very clear.

[686] that the president, and so President Trump says, Putin's our friend, Kim Jong -ung, we're going to deal with him.

[687] MBS, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, even though, according to the CIA, he's behind the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, one of the writers for my newspaper.

[688] And he has all this extraordinary power in the foreign affairs, in domestic affairs, the economy, on moral leadership, on the direction of the country.

[689] And so you put it in the hands of somebody like Trump who won't organize, won't think through.

[690] It's staggering.

[691] And I really find myself saying, as I think I was quoted in the drudge report the other day saying, historians are going to come around and they're going to say, what the F was happening in America in this period.

[692] We have lost our moorings.

[693] Now, that's not by me a political judgment.

[694] I don't have politics.

[695] I can't have politics.

[696] I only vote when my young daughter wants me to go vote for her because she has a favorite candidate.

[697] I'm just not going to, I don't think that way.

[698] As I'm sitting here talking to you, and I'm thinking about the reluctance and then not wearing the mask, I do wonder if you think there's an underpinning of ageism.

[699] And before you answer, I just want to say, as I'm sitting here talking to you, I'm reminded that there would be few people more than you that defended our democracy, that kept it healthy by exposing Nixon.

[700] And then I think you're currently doing it.

[701] But I have to imagine part of the lackluster response to COVID is that it is disproportionately affecting older people.

[702] And we're just not valuing older people the way we would if it had killed 200 ,000 children.

[703] And I just wonder if you have thoughts on that.

[704] And I'm looking at you and you're still defending our democracy.

[705] And it's occurring to me that this is unfair, that maybe part of it is a sense of disposability of older people.

[706] In one of my conversations with Trump, he said, you know, it hits older people.

[707] If you get it, your life is over.

[708] he said.

[709] And I thought, boy, I'm going to, you know, go wash my hands and I'm going to wear my mask.

[710] And so, no, I don't think that's it.

[711] I think it's, and this is a profound question you're asking, where we need to look at ourselves as a country and our responsibility for becoming on more from the principle of, my God, every life counts.

[712] Now, Trump says even one is too much.

[713] But this is going to be a sad story.

[714] We are going to have to walk everyone in this country, the painful road of introspection.

[715] And the road of introspection, as you know, is indeed painful because you see yourself and your weaknesses and you see, what you should have done, you wind up second guessing yourself, and the country's going to have to go through that normally what brings this country to its senses is a crisis.

[716] But this crisis has been happening slowly, you know, a thousand lives here, 2 ,000 lives here, oh, it's only 500 today, oh, whoops, it's up to a thousand back and forth.

[717] And I think it's, it's I had an editor at the Washington Post managing editor named Howard Simons, who was just a great, brilliant man. And he'd go to a party in Washington and so forth.

[718] And he knew if he said he was the managing editor of the Washington Post, everyone would be, you know, what about this?

[719] What about that?

[720] So he used to go to party.

[721] And what do you do?

[722] He said, well, I work for the agriculture.

[723] culture department.

[724] Everyone would say, yes, thank you.

[725] So nice to meet you.

[726] I hope to see you before I leave.

[727] Obviously, these are kind of unparalleled times.

[728] And as you say about us becoming unmoored, is it not shocking to you the difference between what caused Nixon to resign, you know, in its weight and intensity versus what kind of scandal could even exist today that would have a president resign?

[729] is that question makes sense it seems like it's changed such a great deal from when your work resulted in the resignation which about stealing stuff from a hotel room albeit about the election but i just well no it was a democratic national committee the the opposition party watergate was a whole series of other illegal acts and conspiracies and so yes and all to undermine the election and yes i'm not downplaying the severity of that i'm just saying it's seems like we've eclipsed that level several times, and there's really not been any true pressure for someone to confront that.

[730] Do you think what happened with Nixon from your work in the 70s could even happen today?

[731] I guess that's my question.

[732] Yeah, certainly all kinds of things can happen.

[733] And I look at my job.

[734] My job is to find out what happened, and I've been very privileged to work at the Washington Post and have Ben Bradley and Catherine Graham as the owner.

[735] And it's a gift.

[736] It was a gift to me as a young reporter, needless to say.

[737] So we have to work harder in my business.

[738] I need to work harder.

[739] The election is, what, seven weeks away?

[740] Can you believe?

[741] I mean, seven weeks in America goes Zoom, just gone.

[742] And there's a lot.

[743] And there's things we don't know.

[744] There are things that are hidden, and we need to dig into them and, you know, the whole system, Republicans, Democrats, accountable.

[745] There's been some tough reporting on Biden.

[746] There will be more tough reporting on Biden.

[747] So everyone in my business needs to, as Ben Bradley said, when Carl Bernstein and I went and woke him up, this was in 19, 73 at 2 a .m. in the morning at his house to say we've got information that Nixon's behind it all.

[748] And Ben came out in his bathrobe in his pajamas.

[749] And he said, okay, you guys have put us under a lot of pressure and go home and take a bath, rest up a little bit, and then get your ass back to work.

[750] And Ben Bradley departed long ago.

[751] But his voice.

[752] of get your ass back to work is echoing in my head.

[753] And there's no off switch in journalism.

[754] There's no off switch in covering Trump world.

[755] But have you found that there's been over your career so much more distrust now?

[756] Because that's coming from the top, that's coming from the elite of, you know, trying to dismantle the press and media and it's all fake.

[757] And so before with Nixon, when you guys.

[758] broke that story.

[759] It was just believed, right?

[760] Or did you know?

[761] It wasn't.

[762] No, no, people didn't believe it.

[763] We wrote all these stories.

[764] And in 1972 for the 72 election, we wrote all these stories about criminality and break -ins and secret funds and sabotage operations against Democrats, pretty extensive.

[765] And And on election day, Nixon won 49 states.

[766] Yeah.

[767] It wasn't believed.

[768] That's a great.

[769] I'm glad you pointed that out because it feels uniquely.

[770] Current.

[771] Yeah.

[772] But it's really a good question.

[773] And we're in this age of impatience and speed, the Internet, give it to me now, give me one sentence and so forth.

[774] And my colleagues at the Washington Post, do a great daily job.

[775] I mean, we have a team of reporters, woman named Ashley Parker, who came from the New York Times, Bob Costa, Phil Rucker, dozens more covering the White House, covering the administration.

[776] And somebody like me, I don't have to write a daily story.

[777] I don't have to write a weekly story.

[778] And I can deal with the question, not just what did the president know, when did he know it, but how did he know it?

[779] And how did Trump know that this virus was going to be a pandemic and would go through the air?

[780] Took me three months to figure that out and find out about the January 28th meeting.

[781] I wish I was faster.

[782] So it takes a long time to put the pieces together.

[783] And I worry now, you know, I go to sleep and I wonder, what don't we know?

[784] and I wake up in the morning.

[785] I've said this before, and I mean it, I half mean it.

[786] My immediate reaction when I get up is, what are the bastards hiding?

[787] Not one party, but both parties.

[788] In institutions and business, there is a natural reflex, cover up, don't level with people.

[789] Maybe they'll never find out.

[790] Maybe they'll never discover.

[791] When you're president of the United States, you have this unique constitutional and moral and institutional role.

[792] And it's really a truth -telling role.

[793] It's a role of immense responsibility.

[794] No one should walk into it without understanding the dimensions.

[795] And we are now in a situation where I think we need to really wake up about the peril that's coming with this pandemic right now.

[796] If it was over in history, you could kind of say, oh, okay, it's over.

[797] Can't even get close.

[798] And as I was trying to point out, get Dr. Fauci here, and he'll tell you it's going to get worse.

[799] Yeah, yeah, we're in the eye of the storm.

[800] Okay, my last question, and it's for fun.

[801] You've been portrayed in movies by the handsomest man to ever live, Robert Redford, and you've been portrayed by the funniest man to ever live, Will Ferrell.

[802] Who more accurately captured Bob Woodward?

[803] In the first case for all the president's men, Redford, having that role, I always have it fixed in my head, and I say to people and I say to you, you have no idea how many women I've disappointed.

[804] Yes, really, at the time, I was not married, and I would call women up for dates and, you know, I'd know, I'd know, oh, yeah, I'd love, oh, yes, let's have a date.

[805] So, and then I'd go to the door and ring the buzzer.

[806] And the door would open and go, Huh?

[807] Where's Bob Redford?

[808] I have seen more disappointment on women's faces than anyone.

[809] And so, what's the lesson?

[810] Don't take any of this stuff seriously.

[811] Just the Ben Bradley rule, nose down, ass up, moving slowly.

[812] forward.

[813] I like that.

[814] Well, you are a national treasure.

[815] We thank you for all the 50 years plus work you've done, always with the goal of keeping that fourth estate strong and keeping this democracy honest and thriving.

[816] So thank you so much.

[817] We really appreciate you taking the time.

[818] We've got a lot of work to do in the next weeks.

[819] Enjoy the discussion.

[820] Good luck.

[821] All right.

[822] Thank you so much, Mr. Woodward.

[823] on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[824] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.

[825] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.