Donald Trump is a congenital liar, averaging about seven lies per day since he took office. Yet, he has been the first to call others liars. The president’s ability to project his own actions upon others verges on frightening. Renowned reporter Bob Woodward investigated President Nixon’s Watergate, and now he has just released startling information about his new tell-all book on Trump, Fear: Trump in the White House.
Naturally, POTUS called Woodward a liar. The would-be leader of the free world lives in his own environment where there are alternative facts and the truth is not the truth. Of course, people in his administration whom the journalist quoted flooded the news with their denials.
Woodward said that both Chief of Staff John Kelly’s and Defense Secretary James Mattis’ denial statements were false. He said they did, indeed, make critical comments about the president, but the deniers have been trying “to protect their jobs:”
‘They are not telling the truth, These people, these are political statements to protect their jobs, totally understandable…The idea I ever called the president an idiot is not true…(It is) another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes.’
The author noted that Watergate scandal source, Mark Felt, argued for decades that he was not “Deep Throat.” Woodward commented to NPR:
‘You crank out the great Washington denial machine. I’ve seen this over the years, going back to the Nixon case. Time and time again people will deny things. I understand people have to protect their positions. But I’ve done hundreds of hours of interviews with people…These things happened.’
The journalist used “deep background” taped interviews of people around Trump, which meant they were anonymous, but Woodward told a NBC’s Today show host:
‘The people are not anonymous to me.’
The author released an excerpt of his book where Mattis called POTUS’ grasp of the Korean peninsula situation like “a fifth- or sixth-grader.” Still, the defense secretary wrote in his denial that the book was fiction, according to NBC:
‘The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward’s book were never uttered by me or in my presence.’
The chief of staff also told Woodward that Trump was “an idiot” and working in the White House was like working in “Crazytown.”
The Today show host ask Woodward why he could be trusted. After all, he used anonymous sources. He responded:
‘These are not unnamed incidents, specific people on specific dates. The incidents are not anonymous — it gives a date, it gives a time, who participates, most of the time the president himself, and what he says.’
Woodward’s primary statement is, “get the documents,” according to associate editor of The Washington Post, David Maraniss said to MSNBC‘s host, Ali Velshi. The third floor of the journalist’s home is filled with documents to back up his writing.
In a separate story, Woodward came down hard on The New York Times‘ decision to publish the anonymous op-ed written by a senior Trump administration official. His criticism was that the op-ed was too vague. It needed specifics to earn its credibility.
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
