Juicy details from Bob Woodward’s began to trickle out in the press yesterday, including allegations that Defense Secretary James Mattis had complained that Trump had the understanding of “a fifth- or sixth- grader” and that Chief of Staff John Kelly thought the president was “unhinged” and “an idiot,” and that the White House role was “the worst job I’ve ever had.” In the wake of the allegations, Trump went into overdrive on Twitter.
The already discredited Woodward book, so many lies and phony sources, has me calling Jeff Sessions “mentally retarded” and “a dumb southerner.” I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing. He made this up to divide!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2018
The Woodward book has already been refuted and discredited by General (Secretary of Defense) James Mattis and General (Chief of Staff) John Kelly. Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public. Likewise other stories and quotes. Woodward is a Dem operative? Notice timing?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2018
Trump’s scorched-earth assault on unfavorable reporting is so common by now that it’s almost unremarkable. This attack, however, is interesting for a unique reason: It’s diametrically opposite to the tone Trump struck on a phone call with Woodward in early August, after the journalist had finished the manuscript. Woodward released transcripts of the call on Tuesday. On that call, Trump expressed regret that his staff hadn’t told him Woodward was trying to get an interview with him.
“It’s really too bad, because nobody told me about it, and I would’ve loved to have spoken to you,” Trump said. “You know I’m very open to you. I think you’ve always been fair. We’ll see what happens.”
Trump gets the impression early in the call that Woodward’s book isn’t going to make him look great. He takes it in stride with a laugh—“Well, I assume that means it’s going to be a negative book, but, you know, I’m sort of 50 percent used to that”—but sounds genuinely frustrated not to have been able to communicate with Woodward about what he sees as the great successes of his presidency.
“I mean, you do know I’m doing a great job for the country?” Trump says on the call. “You do know that NATO now is going to pay billions and billions of dollars more, as an example, than anybody thought possible, that other presidents were unable to get more? And it was heading downward. You do know all of the things I’ve done and things that I’m doing? I’m in the process of making some of the greatest trade deals ever to be made. You do understand that stuff? I mean, I hope.”
President Trump’s supporters like to point to his tweets as evidence of his raw, unfiltered style, which they see as a sort of no-spin zone where the president can give his raw opinions without tons of media interference. But this Woodward episode demonstrates that Trump’s Twitter persona is in important ways just as predictable and formulaic as any other politician’s press releases. Trump goes on the all-out attack—denying everything, denouncing everyone as a bought-and-paid-for hack. But as the Woodward call shows, offline even Trump isn’t all trollish anger all the time. Talking to Woodward, that rage is replaced with another more human emotion: a monumental frustration at the apparent inability to make yourself understood.
“So we’re going to have a very inaccurate book, and that’s too bad. But I don’t blame you entirely,” Trump tells Woodward. “Accurate is that nobody’s ever done a better job than I’m doing as president. That I can tell you. And that’s the way a lot of people feel that know what’s going on, and you’ll see that over the years. But a lot of people feel that, Bob.”
