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Donald Trump knew the extent of the deadly coronavirus threat in February, but intentionally misled the public by deciding to “downplay” it, according to interviews recorded by one of America’s most revered investigative journalists.
The president of the United States gave Bob Woodward 18 interviews between December 2019 and July 2020. They are the basis of his revealing new book, Rage, obtained Wednesday by the Washington Post and CNN, in which Trump is condemned by his own words.
Just two months before seeking reelection, Trump is quoted describing former President George W Bush as “a stupid idiot” and poking fun at the Black Lives Matter movement for racial equality and an end to police brutality.
The book also reports that the United States may have been close to nuclear war with North Korea in 2017.
Rage shows the gulf between Trump’s public and private statements about the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 190,000 Americans and sparked the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
As early as January 28, 2020, Robert O’Brien, the national security adviser, gave him a “jarring” warning, informing the president that Covid-19 would be the “greatest threat to national security” of his presidency. Trump’s head “popped up,” the book says.
Three days later, Trump announced restrictions on travel from China, although the virus was already in the United States.
On February 7, he told Woodward in a phone call: “It’s on the air. That is always harder than touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it happens. And that is very complicated. That is very delicate. It’s also deadlier than even your strenuous blush. “
He added, “This is deadly.”
But February, in the opinion of Woodward and many other analysts, was a lost month. On February 27, Trump said publicly: “He’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear. “In a tweet on March 9, he explicitly compared it to the common flu, noting that” nothing closes, life and the economy continue “in the flu season.” Think about it!”
By March 19, Trump had declared a national emergency, but he told Woodward: “I always wanted to downplay it. I still like to downplay it, because I don’t want to create a panic. “
Speaking at an election campaign event in Warren, Michigan, on Wednesday afternoon, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden reacted to the reports saying, “He knew how deadly he was. It was much more deadly than the flu. He knew it and he purposely downplayed it. Worse still, he lied to the American people. He consciously and willingly lied about the threat he posed to the country for months. “
Biden added: “He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was, and while this deadly disease swept through our nation, he didn’t do his job on purpose. It was a life and death betrayal of the American people. Experts say that if he had acted just a week earlier, 36,000 people would have been saved. “
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the Democratic House, told MSNBC: “I think what you said connotes two things. One, her weakness: she did not know how to face the challenge to our country.
“Second, your disdain and denial of science, which has the answers, we could have contained this from the beginning. But bigger than all that was his utter disregard for the impact on individual families in our country. “
At a briefing of the White House coronavirus task force on April 3, Trump was still downplaying the virus.
“I said it goes and goes,” he said. But just two days later, he told Woodward: “It’s horrible. It’s unbelievable. “On April 13, he acknowledged,” It’s so easily transmissible you wouldn’t even believe it. “
In May, Woodward asked Trump if he remembered O’Brien’s dire warning on January 28. He replied, “No, I don’t know, I’m sure if he said it, you know, I’m sure he said it. Good Guy.”
And in his last interview in July, Trump tried to evade responsibility, telling Woodward: “The virus has nothing to do with me. It’s not my fault. It’s … China let out the damn virus. “
Rage also contains damning views on Trump’s failures to lead the response to the virus, for example, his unwillingness to order economic lockdowns and prevarication and resistance for months over the use of masks.
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, is quoted describing Trump’s leadership as “rudderless” and saying that his “attention span is like a negative number.”
Fauci is said to have said, “His sole purpose is to be re-elected.”
Woodward, 77, has won two Pulitzer Prizes and has written about nine American presidents. His reporting with his Washington Post colleague Carl Bernstein on the Watergate robbery and cover-up helped spark Richard Nixon’s resignation. Trump has expressed his admiration for Nixon and is currently echoing his “law and order” electoral strategy.
But Trump said that Woodward made Bush “look like a stupid idiot, which he was,” according to the book, and said of Barack Obama: “I don’t think Obama is smart … I think he’s very overrated. And I don’t think he’s a great speaker. “
He also told Woodward that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un thought Obama was an “idiot.”
In June, at the height of protests against racial injustice following the police assassination of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May, Woodward suggested to Trump that privileged white men like themselves should appreciate the plight of African Americans.
Trump replied, “No,” in a mocking voice. “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? I’m only hearing you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all. “
Meanwhile, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is quoted as saying that four texts are key to understanding Trump, including Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Kushner paraphrased the Cheshire cat from the book: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”
Woodward also writes that Trump’s national security team warned that the United States could have been close to nuclear war with North Korea in 2017. James Mattis, the then Defense Secretary, slept in his clothes to be ready in the event of a North Korean missile launch and prayed at Washington’s National Cathedral. Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, is quoted as saying: “We never knew if it was real or if it was a hoax.”
Mysteriously, Trump boasted to Woodward of a secret new weapons system: “I have built a nuclear system, a weapons system that no one in this country has had before.” Woodward writes that other sources corroborated the claim, but were surprised Trump revealed it.
Woodward obtained the 27 “love letters” that Trump exchanged with Kim. Kim compliments Trump by repeatedly calling him “Your Excellency,” and writes that the “deep and special friendship between us will function as a magical force.” Kim says in another that the encounter again would be “reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy movie.”
At the White House on Wednesday, Trump dismissed the book as “just another successful political work” and tried to defend his handling of the pandemic. “The fact is that I am an entertainer from this country,” he told reporters. “I love our country and I don’t want people to be scared. I don’t want to create panic. “
He added: “And I’m certainly not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy. We want to show confidence, we want to show strength as a nation, and that is what I have done. And we have done it very well from any standard. If you look at our numbers compared to other countries, other parts of the world, it’s an incredible job what we’ve done. “
The United States has the highest number of cases and the highest death toll in the world.
