President Trump defended Bob Woodward (and, in turn, himself) against criticisms that the Watergate sleuth should have released the president’s remarks about downplaying the coronavirus sooner.
Trump said Woodward did not feel obligated to warn the public about his comments on the severity of the coronavirus early on in the pandemic, which were caught on tape, because he felt there was nothing improper about sharing a desire to play down the health crisis to keep the public calm.
“Bob Woodward had my quotes for many months. If he thought they were so bad or dangerous, why didn’t he immediately report them in an effort to save lives? Didn’t he have an obligation to do so? No, because he knew they were good and proper answers. Calm, no panic!” Trump tweeted on Thursday morning.
Bob Woodward had my quotes for many months. If he thought they were so bad or dangerous, why didn’t he immediately report them in an effort to save lives? Didn’t he have an obligation to do so? No, because he knew they were good and proper answers. Calm, no panic!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2020
Woodward has been widely criticized for waiting to release Trump’s remarks about the virus to the public for months while he finished up his latest book, Rage. Jessica Huseman, a ProPublica reporter, criticized his decision to withhold the information from February until September, as did many others.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s fine that Woodward had this tape for the last several months while thousands of people died and said nothing,” Huseman tweeted.
honestly, i don’t think it’s fine that Woodward had this tape for the last several months while thousands of people died and said nothing. https://t.co/XVtyEiqDnb
— Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) September 9, 2020
Why didn’t Bob Woodward do his journalistic duty and tell the media about his Covid bombshell 6 months ago???
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) September 9, 2020
And Bob Woodward sat on this info for seven months so he could sell books. https://t.co/34L8iH1G7T
— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) September 9, 2020
Woodward defended his decision to withhold the tapes. He told the Associated Press that he did not know if Trump was telling the truth when the remarks were made.
“He tells me this, and I’m thinking, ‘Wow, that’s interesting, but is it true?’ Trump says things that don’t check out, right?” he said. Woodward noted that he wasn’t confident that Trump had told the truth until May.
“If I had done the story at that time about what he knew in February, that’s not telling us anything we didn’t know,” he added.
Woodward did a series of 18 interviews with Trump and other members of the administration for the book. Trump’s remarks about downplaying the severity of the pandemic to the public in February and March have been among the most controversial revelations from the book, which is due for release on Tuesday.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he did not “get any sense” that Trump downplayed the pandemic to the public despite Trump’s remarks to Woodward.
“I may not be tuned in to the right thing they’re talking about, but I didn’t see any discrepancies between what he told us and what we told him and what he ultimately came out publicly and said,” Fauci told Fox News on Wednesday.
