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Today “Rage” hits stores: journalist Bob Woodward’s new book on the president of the United States. And that has it all: Trump deliberately left his compatriots in the dark about the dangers of Covid-19.
By Katrin Brand, ARD Studio Washington
This is how you have to imagine it. The phone rings and it is the president’s turn. “Mr. President, how are you?” Asks Bob Woodward, announcing that, as always, he will turn on his tape recorder. The journalist spoke to the president 18 times, sometimes at the White House, sometimes at night by phone.
Trump could have guessed it
“Why the hell did he do that?” Asked Tucker Carlson, host of “Fox News.” A fair question, because Trump could have foreseen that he would not do well in Woodward’s new book.
But maybe he believed he could really explain his worldview to the star reporter of the hated Washington Post. And Trump may never have read a book by Woodward, who helped uncover the Watergate scandal in the 1970s and thus contributed to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Shake before launch
Commentators doubt that “rage” can develop similar power. The vortex so far, however, is huge, because: What Trump has been telling the reporter since December 2019 is not necessarily what he has told the public: “It’s coming through the air,” Trump chatted in February after find out about the corona virus. He had learned, “You don’t have to touch anything, that’s more dangerous.” And he said that Covid-19 was more deadly than a serious flu.
The president assured the American public that the virus was under control and that everything would end well. And he said that by the way, the president also said that on the phone: he downplayed it and is still downplaying it because he didn’t want to cause panic.
Trump defends himself today that it is his job to spread confidence. And his spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany claims that Trump never lied to the American public about Covid, that he wanted to sow calm.
Template for Biden
Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, sees things differently: “It was about keeping the stock market from crashing, his rich friends losing money and being able to say that none of this has anything to do with me.” “Biden said on CNN. If Trump had informed the public instead, fewer people would have died.
But Woodward had to accept it too. He was asked why he had withheld this important information from the public. In February, he defended himself on the radio station NPR, there was no knowledge of the virus in the US He believed that all this related only to China.
North Korea, Obama, the current debate on racism. Woodward learned a lot about Trump. And the American public wants to know: Pre-orders suggest that “Rage” will be a best-seller.
