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In a new book, Bob Woodward plans to reveal the ‘harrowing life’ inside Donald Trump’s White House

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In the worldwide capital of leaks and anonymous dishing that is Washington, secrets can be almost impossible to keep.

But somehow over the past 19 months, the fact that America’s most famous investigative journalist was quietly chipping away at a book that delves into the dysfunctions of President Trump’s White House remained largely unknown. On Monday night, that veil of secrecy will be lifted when Simon & Schuster plans to announce that it will publish “Fear: Trump in the White House” by Bob Woodward on Sept. 11, according to a copy of the release obtained by The Washington Post.

In the book, Woodward’s 19th, the 75-year-old journalist and author “reveals in unprecedented detail the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump’s White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies,” the publisher’s release states.

The expected tenor of the book is underscored by its unsettling cover, an extreme close-up of a squinty-eyed Trump depicted through a gauzy red filter. The hush-hush project derives its title from an offhand remark that then-candidate Trump made in an interview with Woodward and Post political reporter Robert Costa in April 2016. Costa asked Trump whether he agreed with a statement by then-President Barack Obama, who had said in an Atlantic magazine interview that “real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence.”

At first Trump seemed to agree, saying: “Well, I think there’s a certain truth to that. . . . Real power is through respect.”

But then he added a personal twist: “Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word: ‘Fear.’ ”

Woodward, who declined to be quoted for this article, has privately described the remark as “an almost Shakespearean aside.”

Woodward, an associate editor at The Post, is deeply embedded in the cultural fabric of American journalism. He is famed for his Pulitzer-winning reporting at The Post with Carl Bernstein on the deceptions and misdeeds of President Richard Nixon in the 1970s that eventually led to the resignation of the 37th president of the United States. Their work was immortalized in the film “All the President’s Men,” in which Robert Redford played Woodward and Dustin Hoffman portrayed Bernstein.

A casual observer of American political news might be excused for thinking the 1970s never ended. Not only is Woodward publishing a Trump book, but Bernstein is also appearing regularly on American television screens after recently co-writing a scoopy piece for CNN that asserted Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen is willing to testify that Trump was aware in advance of a now-infamous meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russians offering dirt of Hillary Clinton.

Woodward is one of the best-selling American nonfiction authors of the modern era, and the publication of his books generally become news events in their own right. As usual, Woodward was represented by Robert B. Barnett, the powerhouse Washington attorney who also has negotiated literary contracts for former presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign opponent, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Woodward’s most recent work, “The Last of the President’s Men,” chronicled the story of Alexander Butterfield, the Nixon aide who revealed the existence of an Oval Office taping system. But with his new book, “Fear,” Woodward will be returning to the sort of endeavor for which he has been best known during his long career: real-time reporting on American power and the presidency.

His previous works on American presidents, including books about George W. Bush and Obama, have tended to focus primarily on single, all-important decisions, such as whether to engage in foreign wars. “Fear” is expected to be a broader examination of the presidency.

“Fear” will add to the avalanche of books that focus on the Trump presidency or issues related to his time in office. Among those who have generated headlines are former FBI director James B. Comey’s, “A Higher Loyalty,” Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” and the just-released book by Trump’s former press secretary, Sean Spicer: “The Briefing: Politics, the Press and the President.”

Woodward’s new book draws on the hallmarks of his approach to investigative reporting, pulling details from “hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, contemporaneous meeting notes, files, documents and personal diaries,” according to his publisher. “FEAR brings to light the explosive debates that drive decision-making in the Oval Office, the Situation Room, Air Force One and the White House residence.”

Jonathan Karp, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster, touted the work as “the most acute and penetrating portrait of a sitting president ever published during the first years of an administration.”

While working on the book, Woodward has kept a lower profile than usual, limiting cable news appearances and attempting to stay out of the public eye. Instead, the author has told friends, he’s gone back to some of the signature moves of his youthful reporting days.

Late at night, he’s been prone to show up at important people’s houses unannounced to ask for interviews. He’s told friends that it feels like a “rebirth.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...9c6a5c-93fc-11e8-810c-5fa705927d54_story.html
 
Expect recounts of how International leaders and politicians were greeted with the smell of curly cheese fries and McDonald's chicken nuggets as they entered the white house.

In all seriousness, no amount of exaggerations and hyperbole can paint a true picture of the things that go inside the head of this madman.
 
5 storylines to watch in the unfolding saga of Donald Trump and Bob Woodward

(CNN)The battle lines have been drawn. On one side, President Donald Trump and his allies and enablers. On the other, Bob Woodward, hundreds of hours of taped interviews and dozens of sources and a book that reads as a comprehensive indictment of Trump's first 19 months in office.

Trump spent Tuesday attacking Woodward's "Fear: Trump in the White House" as largely a work of fiction containing "so many lies and phony sources." (Notably, he didn't detail the alleged lies. More on that below.) Woodward, meanwhile, is largely letting the reporting in the book speak for itself.

"I stand by my reporting," Woodward told CNN's Jamie Gangel.

So where do we go from here? Below, five storylines to watch over the coming days that may well determine who winds up with the upper hand in the fight over "Fear."


1. Can Trump disprove anything of consequence in the book?

What we saw late Tuesday was a series of coordinated denials by senior Trump staffers -- chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis -- designed to rebut hugely damaging portrayals of them as both afraid and dismissive of the President. But statements like those are sort of de rigueur in these situations. Broad denials that create straw men, knock them down and then suggest the matter is settled. If Mattis and Kelly didn't put out statements doing just that, it's hard to see how they could possibly remain in the administration for even one more day.

But what now? Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that the Woodward book "form[ed] a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite of the fact." That is a big claim. Given Woodward's reputation -- as the preeminent chronicler of the modern White House -- and his long track record of fair and accurate reporting, the onus is on Trump to prove Woodward made major mistakes. And that means providing specific evidence of mistakes, not just saying the book is riddled with errors.

2. Will Republicans break ranks?

Time and again over his first year-plus in office, Republican elected officials have sought to ignore or downplay Trump's repeated unpresidential words and actions. They have played along with his construct that nothing is his fault and everything is the fault of the media and the way we cover him. Do Republican influencers keep up that solid front in the face of what -- knowing Woodward -- is almost certain to be a mountain of evidence (transcriptions of interviews, tapes etc.) that back up his book? Already, less than 24 hours in, cracks were showing. On Tuesday night, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham called Woodward a "good reporter." And Ari Fleischer, former press secretary in the George W. Bush White House and someone who has demonstrated a willingness to defend Trump, tweeted this: "I've been on the receiving end of a Bob Woodward book. There were quotes in it I didn't like. But never once -- never -- did I think Woodward made it up. Anonymous sources have looser lips and may take liberties. But Woodward always plays is straight. Someone told it to him." The issue is not whether the Jeff Flakes and Ben Sasses of the world criticize Trump; they will. What matters is whether any of the leadership of the party -- or other members who have not previously voiced their issues with the President -- do so.

3. What else does Woodward have?

Remember that the actual book doesn't come out until next Tuesday. Yes, we've already heard some of the juiciest nuggets. But, this is a 400+ page book. Which means that there is a lot more in there. What is it? How does Trump react to it? How is it covered -- and for how long? The initial wave of Woodward stories is over. But the overarching story isn't done -- far from it. How long it goes and how bad it is for Trump depends heavily on what else Woodward has in the book and/or other damning audio like the sort he released yesterday of a recorded phone call between himself and Trump.

4.Will the White House message change?

Trump is a notoriously unreliable messenger -- often saying one thing in an interview and contradicting himself in a tweet. Or offering a totally different version of events than the official White House readout of a situation. Remember how Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey because of a memo that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote? And then Trump admitted to NBC's Lester Holt that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the memo, while thinking "of this Russia thing with Trump."

We're already seeing some message dissonance from Trump. After spending most of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning disparaging the Woodward book as fake, Trump tweeted this at 9:20 a.m.: "Almost everyone agrees that my Administration has done more in less than two years than any other Administration in the history of our Country. I'm tough as hell on people & if I weren't, nothing would get done. Also, I question everybody & everything-which is why I got elected!" That sure as hell sounds like a confirmation that the rough treatment by Trump toward his staff as described in the Woodward book is accurate. Which raises the question of whether Trump actually thinks Woodward's book isn't true, is true in parts or is totally true and he's just saying stuff.

5. Will there be a big resignation or firing?

I know that, at the moment, the White House is keeping a (mostly) united front. But we know that Trump and Kelly especially have not always been on the best of terms. Despite Kelly's denial that he called Trump an "idiot," it seems likely -- given not just Woodward's reporting but the weight of all of the reporting on this White House -- that Kelly has used a choice word (or 10) to describe the President. And it's also likely that Woodward has the tapes -- or transcripts -- to back up the claims he makes about how Kelly and Mattis view the President. When that rubber meets the road, it's possible that Trump loses his patience (he's done it before!) and jettisons someone like Kelly. Such a move would obviously, create its own spinoff storyline.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/05/politics/donald-trump-bob-woodward/index.html
 
Omarosa released her book a couple of weeks ago with promised secret recordings. It was a great con job and she would have made a few million from it. How many books is it now, must be close to a hundred I think. Publishers are guaranteed to sell at least a million if they put Trump in the title.
 


3. What else does Woodward have?

Remember that the actual book doesn't come out until next Tuesday. Yes, we've already heard some of the juiciest nuggets. But, this is a 400+ page book. Which means that there is a lot more in there. What is it? How does Trump react to it? How is it covered -- and for how long? The initial wave of Woodward stories is over. But the overarching story isn't done -- far from it. How long it goes and how bad it is for Trump depends heavily on what else Woodward has in the book and/or other damning audio like the sort he released yesterday of a recorded phone call between himself and Trump.



Don't know if anyone has read the transcript of that phone call. If that audio is damming then the rest should be just as helpful in putting insomniacs to sleep.
 
The phone call between Woodward and Trump has been released. Woodward claims he attempted to arrange an interview with Trump but Trump said he never heard any interview requests from staff, even putting Kellyanne Conway on the line in an amusing moment.

However everyone is familiar with Trump's talking points and his laissez faire attitude towards the truth so that interview would've been futile. More interesting are the comments from staffers and officials inside the Administration.

One of the stories from the book was that Mattis apparently overruled Trump's desire to assassinate Assad last year during the Syria confrontation that led to the air strikes.

John Kelly is also reported to have long lost patience with Trump's behaviour.
 
No revelation is shocking anymore, it is almost expected of him being dumb, racist, indirectly supporting neo-nazi, talking about petty issues because his fans are unable to comprehend real issues, inability to comprehend simple fact, conduct simple task.

And those claiming that all of this is false, well, Woodward isn't Omarosa.
 
What these books are going to achieve?

Act as a chronicle of one of the most interesting, but shocking, periods in modern history ? There is certainly a dire need to document what has happened over the last couple of years so that in the future people don't ever underestimate mankind's propensity to react irrationally.
 
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