Veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward predicted Tuesday that the newspaper will cover presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump more moving forward despite losing credentials to cover his events.
Woodward, now an associate editor at the Post, defended the paper’s coverage of Trump, telling MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that it has been “fair.” He also echoed executive editor Marty Baron’s Monday statement, saying that the paper will continue to cover Trump this way.
“In one form or another, we’ve all been there where people don’t like coverage or they revoke this or say they are not going to be interviewed and you just keep on, and so I’m not worried about that, if I may,” Woodward said.
“What I’m concerned about is that there is a sense that because of some of the things Trump has said, which have rightly been criticized quite severely, that this campaign is over. It’s not over,” Woodward said. “The goal has to be keep at it. Find out more. There’s so many questions about Trump that have not been answered. The same with Hillary Clinton. So just keep digging and this is kind of a minor bump in the road.”
However, despite his opposition to the move, Woodward said he thinks Trump knows exactly what he is doing thanks to the media’s distrust throughout the U.S. He then vowed that the Post will continue to cover Trump intensely despite the ban.
“I think in a way he does understand the role of the press. Look, let’s face it, we are mistrusted by people in the country, so by targeting us one way or the other, and this really doesn’t make sense and is not going to work,” Woodward said. “We’ll just keep doing it. This isn’t going to mean there’s no coverage. In fact, it’s going to mean there’s more coverage.”
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough then compared the situation to “The Godfather,” arguing that Trump should “keep the Washington Post close.”
All of this comes after Trump took issue with the paper’s headline in a story from Monday on the billionaire businessman’s comments in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting on Sunday. He decided then to take away the Post’s ability to cover his events, which he bragged about during his event in North Carolina on Tuesday night.
“We just took the press credentials away. I love it! We just took the press credentials away from the dishonest Washington Post,” Trump told supporters to loud cheers. “I said ‘why should I have people following me around … and they write very untruthful stories … I’m so happy.”
