President Trump wouldn’t be as successful as he’s been in the White House if Bob Woodward’s account of infighting and name-calling in the administration were true, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders argued Wednesday.
“The president laid out an agenda very clearly during the campaign, and since day one of taking office he’s delivering on that agenda every single day. You can’t have the type of success that this president has had if what that book says is true,” Sanders said on ABC News.
[More: Trump hits back at Bob Woodward over critical book excerpts]
FULL INTERVIEW: White House responds to bombshell book–@GStephanopoulos is speaking with the @PressSec live this morning: https://t.co/0wZJnpowI9 pic.twitter.com/UzyO0vpy01
— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 5, 2018
Sanders said that even though Woodward says he has hundreds of hours of tape to back up the claims in his book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” they are off-the-record accounts from “disgruntled former employees.”
Sanders noted that while attacks on the president in Woodward’s book were made anonymously, the denials of those comments were made on-the-record by reputable men and “American heroes” White House chief of staff John Kelly and Defense secretary Jim Mattis.
“It’s clear that you have the accounts from people firsthand … and they’re on the record, which is very different than what this book is filled with,” Sanders told Fox News in a separate interview.
Mattis on Tuesday called Woodward’s book a work of “fiction,” and said he never called the president an idiot, as the book claims.
Wednesday morning, Trump called for tougher libel laws against those who write “totally made up” articles and books.
