Bob Woodward gave Trump every chance to prove himself
Opinion by
Columnist
September 10, 2020 at 5:19 p.m. CDT
It’s a
testimony to Donald Trump’s measureless ego that he thought he could charm Bob
Woodward (and his tape recorder) into producing a positive book about his
presidency. But you know that’s not how it’s going to turn out.
“If I
have a fair book, it’s going to be a great book,” Trump enthuses. Woodward
gives Trump every chance to make his case during the 18 on-the-record interviews he
conducted for “Rage,” his latest
mega-blockbuster. He gives Trump credit for matters large and small. He coaxes,
teases, almost pleads with Trump to say the right thing. In the end, Trump is
damned by his own words.
Trump
confirms the worst charges made by his critics, on tape: “I always wanted to
play it down,” he says of the coronavirus pandemic that
has now cost nearly 200,000 lives. Talking about the military, the president
says he would never call them stupid, and then calls them “stupid,” and says
“we’re suckers” for funding allies’ defense.
“I
don’t think you get it,” Trump worries in one of the last interviews. But
Woodward not only gets it, he has the audio: the anger, the disorganization,
the denial, the inability to articulate a clear plan. Gently inserting a
stiletto in the last words of the book, Woodward says simply: “Trump is the
wrong man for the job.”
In
July, it’s dawning on Trump, the perennially optimistic self-promoter, that
Woodward is about to produce the “lousy book” he fears. “Don’t worry about it.
We’ll get to do another book,” the president soothes his Boswell. “You’ll find
I was right.”
The
first half of the book is the story of how Trump’s three key advisers on
national security issues grew to fear and loathe him. For all that’s been
disclosed in previous books and articles, Woodward’s portraits of these three
“formers” — defense secretary Jim Mattis, secretary of state Rex Tillerson and
director of national intelligence Daniel Coats — are revelatory.
Mattis’s
intense dislike of Trump is vividly conveyed in several comments. Trump’s
orders “went beyond stupid to felony stupid,” Mattis said (to someone, whose
first name presumably is “Bob.”) “He’s dangerous. He’s unfit,” Mattis is said
to have told Coats. And there’s a moving portrait of Mattis visiting the
Washington National Cathedral to reflect on the horror of war with North Korea.
Among
the book’s most stunning, if maddeningly imprecise, revelations is that Coats
feared that Russian President Vladimir Putin had leverage on Trump: “Coats
continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened,
although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump.
How else to explain the president’s behavior?”
Unattributed
quotes such as these will drive some readers nuts, as may tantalizing but
nebulous phrases such as: “Coats’s mind whirled. The incidents of discord kept
piling up.” But Woodward is surfacing here a suspicion held by many former
intelligence officers, and it’s one Americans need to understand.
Woodward
tries to give Trump his due, where appropriate. Trump’s North Korea diplomacy
was “an achievement.” The intelligence community initially underplayed the
impact of covid-19. So did Anthony S. Fauci.
Trump was “correct” in doubting that New York needed as many ventilators as
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) wanted. These efforts at fairness make the book’s
harsh conclusion all the more convincing.
“Rage” will be read
carefully, and perhaps not always approvingly, by journalism classes of the
future. Woodward’s extensive transcriptions of his interviews with the
president let you see how this sausage was made. Sometimes, his queries sound
almost like those of a sports broadcaster trying to coax out emotion: “This is
a question about your leadership. And you know, I just want to know how you
feel about it.”
After
the killing of George Floyd,
Woodward tries to school Trump in the reality that he’s a beneficiary of White
privilege, “just like I am.” Trump temporizes, but Woodward is solicitous:
“What’s in your heart? I think people want to understand that you understand.”
Trump won’t go there.
At
other moments, Woodward sounds almost like an informal adviser. In January,
when the impeachment drama is heating up, he encourages Trump to take a walk
with his daughter Ivanka and ask her, “would an apology, carefully phrased, end
this or put it in a context?” In April, when the covid-19 catastrophe was
accelerating, Woodward gives Trump a list of 14 points that require action.
But as
is nearly always true with Woodward, the information he elicits is worth the
wheedling and cajoling. What makes him the preeminent journalist of his
generation is that in the end, Woodward is willing to bite the hand that feeds
him. How could Trump have imagined otherwise?
