Votes and how do you make sure there is a fair and square election and we are heading into another chapter, chapter 73 of trump world and we are just going to have to watch it day by day, hour by hour i. Host you spoke with the president 19 times for this book. How did it come about and how did he agree to talk with you . Guest i did a book in 2018, fear, on his first two years and he did not cooperate and i tried to talk to him and he regretted and of course, denounced the book and said i was a democrat operative and people close to him said, by the way, the book is true and so the president , when i wanted to do the second book said he would cooperate. I went into the oval office, put my tape recorder down and i put it on the resolute desk and said its all on record and i will record it all and the book will come out in september or october before the election is so i talked to him for noun hours and 41 minutes and he would call me at home at 10 00 oclock or on the weekends or i could call and i had a number where i could contact him so i guess what i would call a total universe portrait of his thinking about his job and the central issue of the virus, race relations, the economy, the supreme court. We were able to go down every avenue of america. Its really a look at him and he allowed me to push him and come back to questions and i suspect he is not very happy now but that is what he said and that is what i was able to find out from my other reporting. Host what role does senator Lindsey Graham have in the president s speaking to you . Ha guest apparently, he told the president , look, he wont put words in your mouth and youll get a straight shot. Last week the president said i said some great things in those interviews and on the book and in the book. I let him have his say entirely so its as close, i believe, having done this now for 50 years that you can ever come to, as an outsider, what was really going on and the white house and the administration on every matter of importance. Host this is your 20th book, mr. Woodward. How do you know when the former officials are ready to talk . You just keep the old way it used to be go to their homes and knocked on their door at night. With the virus you cant do that so you use the telephone as your enter and people are home at night and you can get them on the phone sometimes and sometimes for extended periods of time and sometimes for very, very long interviews. Central lesson for me is people like to talk. Thank god. I think people are out there no matter what their politics or their secret shares as believers in the first amendment. Host we want to invite our viewers to join in on the conversation. If you are supporting joe bidenn and senator harris dial in at 202 7488000, if you are supported President Trump and Vice President pence 202 7488001, if you support others, 202 7488002. You write in your book, and your authors note, they insisted everyone in this book ednaudible] she kept her eyes on the prize and worked tirelessly with to be fulfilled. He insists on verification for everything, no fact or nuance goes unchecked. Tell us about this process. Guest they are my two assistants and they were willing to come to my house and work in their offices on my third floor and i have an office on that floor. My wife also has an office in the tower and we were a team working together wearing masks, being as careful as we could exchanging drafts and doing transcripts of all the interviews with trump and with everyone else. Also, we did not have to wear a mask with each other and we lived our lives but we lived in that bubble of trump world for ten weeks for both elsa and myself an extraordinary time because we could get, not only to drop but we could get to other people in the white house, cabinet officers and people close to the president. Host sophia is up first in the bronx supporting the former Vice President. Sophia, go ahead you are on the air with mr. Woodward. Caller thank you. Thank you mr. Woodward. Are you there . Guest yes, i am. Caller okay. First i want to say this. Fifty years a job youve done and this was your best and should get a noble prize. If you did not record him he would have denied so i voted for him. I am one of the deportables and i see now the last three weeks the lying he had and all the people, my people, [inaudible] even though he admitted in an interview sir that this is going to be bad. You understand, sir. [inaudible] i hope you get the nobel prize because somebody has to make it clear that you are brilliant. If you do not record him he would have been or he would have denied or it wouldve been chaos and thank you for listening. I hope you talk about the rally. He will kill us. I supported him. Im the deported. Host sophia, all right. Thank you, mr. Woodward. Guest first of all, i recorded him with his permissi permission. Frankly, when the book came out i wasnt sure i would put out the audios. My wife also walsh, cnn got the book early and they said you need to put out audios and ive done that a couple of times on books but only insm the small w. They said no, it was the movement between elsa and jamie to say no, youve got to do this because the context was which we know people dont trust the media. People dont trust much. [laughter] being able to hear it with their own ears, here President Trump say these things and say to me that hate look, hes trying to downplay the virus and he doesnt want to cause a panic and the key to all of this and i start my book with this meeting on january 28 in the oval office when the National Security team, advisor Robert Obrien told President Trump about the virus and said this virus is going to be the biggest, not may be or will be, is going to be the biggest National Security threag to your presidency and his deputy who had worked in china as a wall street journal reporter during the 2003 pandemic new that the Chinese Government lied all the time and he had sources in china and he was able to explainn to presidet trump, not that this trouble was coming but a major pandemic wase coming because he had those contacts and those sources in china in the medical community who would stand up to the Chinese Communist party and the Chinese Government and he said this is going to be like the 1918, 1918 spanish flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people in this country. Host carol, royal oak, michigan. Caller hello. Good morning. I am curious mr. Woodward, do you like the president as a person . And do you think that. Host hold on, hold on. Guest no, no. [laughter]ng caller the president said go ahead, turn the machine on so do you thank you would ever get a democrat to do that . Guest yes, i have many, many times president obama, president clinton so it is a nonpartisan tape recorder as i may say that and my approach is aggressively nonpartisan. You asked a very good question at the beginning. Do i like the president . He has, as you know, he can be very charming and he would let me push him and we would sometimes even joke about things but he knew and i knew this is not a joking matter and everything particularly, the virus and so he has an appeal and my wife elsa says she listened in on some of these calls because i would put it on the speakerphone and i told President Trump that and there rewere some foul language and at one point President Trump said i dont want yourr wife to hear this, her pretty ears i think was his term. So, i was open and listening to him. We started these interviews before the virus and we talked a great deal about his relationship with north korea and kim jong moon, the north Korean Leader and i got the letters or the Letter Exchange aitween them and President Trump told me and said look, weve not had a war and there was an expectation and maybe we were going to have a nuclear war with north korea and i think and i indeed give him credit on this. Not having a war and back in the 1960s after i got out of college i served five yearser in the u. S. Navy as Communications Officer and this was during vietnam and i saw vietnam up close and the lives lies of vietnam and the horror of that war and so i give President Trump credit for avoiding a war with north korea. At the same time, relations between trump and kim junkfood have broken down now and we dont know where it is going and lots of experts say they dont think trump handled it right. I am agnostic on that. I say this is what he did and he is very emphatic with me in these interviews that it was a no war strategy and if you look over all the Trump Administration we have not had a new war and a lot of people expected we would have won. At the same time the relations with some countries, trump likes autocratic leaders and he talked to me about that quite openly and so he picked leaders like putin to have a Good Relationship with him and with the crown prince of saudi arabia and his negotiation with kim jongun in. Anyway, the positives and the negatives are laid out as best i could. Host you right in the book about these letters between north Korean Leader and the president which he calls love letters. You see the cia never figure it out conclusively who wrote and crafted kims letter to trump. They were masterpieces. The analyst marveled at the skills someone brought to signing the exact mixture of flattery while appealing to trumps sons of grandiose city and being center stage in history. Guest the letters are magnificent because there is, from kim jonget moon he just reaches out for trump and says we know each other and we can trust each other and we will be friends for each other and at one point he talks about i remember standing in meeting with you and holding your excellencys hand and they pledge fealty to each other as i say in the book it is almost like the knights of theal round table and at the same time when kim jong moon would not deliver on his agreement to get rid of his Nuclear Weapons trump pushed him and said no, look, you gave your word on this and you are nt ready to make the deal and so the second meeting which was in hon neu, vietnam fell apart. We dont know where all of this is going. It is a very dicey situation because, as i report, kim jongun has dozens, several dozens of Nuclear Weapons and they are probably not, you know big busters like some of the missiles, some of the weaponse that we have on our ballistics missile submarine but they are Nuclear Weapons and are well concealed and well hidden and so it is a very real threat that we face from them. Now, history will determine because as karl rove, who was george w. Bushs political advisor and i remember he once told me from one of my bush books and i went up to see him in the white house and rove said we are talking about the iraq war and the afghan war and other issues and rove said look, everything depends on outcomes in politics. I think that is true. The outcome of the relationship with north korea, we dont know where it will end. Host lets go to carl in massachusetts, undecided in this election. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan great mr. Woodward, i have seen you many times on television and on interviews for it i read one of your books a long time ago and i forget the title of it but im sorry to say, i lost a lot of respect for you after the iraq war started right after it started many people realized it was based on a lie and you came out like a couple of years later with the book about that. I thank you were on msnbc, if i remember correctly and to me you were just a johnnycomelately. Correct me if i am wrong, but that is how i feel. Guest well, look, i wrote a story for the Washington Post before the iraq war started and which i quoted a cia official saying they do not have smoking guns intelligence that iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The government and the cia believed that they did but this official told me we dont have smoking gun intelligence. I have faulted myself mightily for not understanding what i wrote in my own newspaper because when somebody says we dont have smoking gun intelligence that means they dont have a verifiable information and they are not sure and, quite frankly, i should have realized what i wrote but i wrote a number of books about the iraq war, the third one was called state of denial. I reported with documentation and all kinds of interviews that president bush, george w. Bush, at the time, was not telling the truth to the American People about how bad the situation was in iraq and it had deteriorated in the years after the 2003 invasion. Host christopher. Go ahead, mr. Woodward, finish up. Guest i was just going to say the iraq war was really an important turning point. Ive always said i should have been more aggressive about it but i did report what happened internally and significantly the cia director George Tennant went to make a presentation to president bush about whether our weapons of mass destruction and president bush kind of was doubted that the intelligence was that solid and George Tennant stood up in the oval office and said its a slam dunk, mr. President. It is a slam dunk. So that was the view at the highest level in the cia and as you may recall powell, secretary of state gave that famous speech at the United Nations in which he held up a little bottle and said you know this contains a chemical weapon and this is what iraq has and howell has since said it is his most embarrassing and his worst moment in his tenure, not only as a military officer but as secretary of state. I should have been more aggressive than i should have been quite frankly in that story i cited to the Washington Post i should have understood when you dont have smoking gun haintelligence you are not sure when you will go to war on that basis anyway. Host christopher in oklahoma supporting the biden harris ticket. Go ahead, christopher. Caller good morning to you both. Massive respect for just the washington journal for us to do this. The last thing i thought i would be doing this morning is about asking a question. There has been, we know over 200,000 deaths since covid19 and i want to know personally do you feel like any responsibility for publicly withholding the information about donald trump initially disclosed to you early on about the virus v even latern after it got [inaudible] to come out but in those initial times and he was telling you and turning right around on tv telling us all the exact opposite. Guest it is a fair question and what trump told me on february 7 that he knew the virus was airborne and it could be transmitted from somebody who had or who did not have symptoms in that it was in fact, more deadly than the flu and we were talking about china and he adjust the evening before had a talk with president xi and i brought a stack of this paper clippings from my newspaper, the Washington Post and the New York Times and all through the time of january and february they were talking about china. I thought trump was talking about china and it was not until may that i learned that trump had been briefed and the centerpiece of this is januar january 28 when trump was told by his National Security advisers that the virus is Robert Obrien put it to the president is going to be not, as i say, maybe but will be the biggest National Security threat to your presidency and his deputy laid out information that he had from doctors in china and i did not know about that meeting until may and what is interesting about journalism that obviously reporters like you sir, we live our lives in Chronological Order but you dont report in chronological e e order. If i had known what i learned in may i obviously would have gone and published a story but i did not knowgo where that was coming from in the context of my discussion with President Trump in china and then when i learned he is talking about whated he ws presented on january 28 and i learned that by asking in may President Trump, do you remember that january 28 meeting and President Trump said no, he didntt but then he said twice, he said i am sure it was said i am sure that it was said and that he had gotten that morning from obrien and so i may even by march the virus was out of control and everyone knew it was deadly and my god, in march all of a sudden it just came to this country in a way exactly that the president was told but came to this country and there were 30000 new cases a day. I was traveling around in early march going to california, going to florida and i had no idea. Tony Anthony Fauci who was the leading Infectious Disease official in this country, wellknown on television and was saying on february 29, go ahead there is no worry, go to the mall and go to the movies and go to the gym so there was no way for me, i had no information that that is what trump was talking about when i, when you walked the cap back and after i learned in may i realized and i asked the president was that where you got that information and he said yes, he knows it was said by obryant and it sounds like a convoluted explanation but that is exactly what happened and i still work at the Washington Post as an associate editor and i have access to the editor, marty baron, to walk into his office or call in or email him and say i have information that needs to go in the paper over the decades and i have done dozens and dozens of times and i would have done it in this case but i did not understand what trump was talking about and if you go back and look at these clips every one of them in january and february is about china because that is where or at one point there was the front page story in the New York Times saying china because of the virus locked down wuhan where it started but many other cities in china locked down and went the Chinese Government locks down you go to your apartment and lock in it, 768 Million People and that is twice the population of the United States and they are all in discussion and all the focus was on china, including by me, of course trump had participated in the critical najanuary 28 meeting and that is the day that Trump Presidency should have changed and should have realized what was coming and he did and when he gave his state of the Union Address a couple of days later he, this is to the congress it is about what is going on in the world as he sees it and what is important and what will the future be like and im sorry, 40 Million People watched that speech and he devoted 15 seconds to the virus saying we are doing everything we can and he was not doing everything he could in he could have told the country the truth about what he had learned on january 28 and he could have protected the people and he could have fulfilled his duty as president but unfortunately he didnt. Fo now have over 200,000 deaths from that virus in this country and a year ago, if we were talking and i said we will have a pandemic that will fill 200,000 people you would think i was on some drug of some sort but that is exactly what is happened and he could have mitigated that and he could have used his knowledge and as he told me and we played this audio and said ive always liked to play it down. I like to play it down. He didnt want to create a pan panic. The sad element in all of this is that President Trump did not understand the people he leads. People in this country, democrats and republicans, independent, undecided, people who dont vote have one thing in common and that is when they are told the truthe, they rally arod and they stepp up and they do what is necessary to deal with the problem. Americans dont panic and maybe some people will but by and large and i may bore you a little bit with history becauset history can tell us a lot in this case. My wife also walsh we would go through all the information we were getting from trump ands other people as i was writing this book and she wasas editingt six times and we sat at dinner one night and she said well, what should trump have done and what is the remedy and she looked into history and Franklin Roosevelt famous fireside chats after one crisis or another and go back and listen, it will bring tears to your eyes if you listen to roosevelt talking two days after pearl harbor and after the japanese sneak attack on pearl harbor and two days later president roosevelt comes on in this fireside chat and says it is all bad news. The most serious undertaking of our American History is before us. The very survival of our country in the world is at stake. It is going to be for every american citizen, grueling work, day and night, every hour, every minute and then he said government, our government, his government has confidence in your ability to hear the worst without losing heart. President trump instead approach this and said well, i better not tell the truth and i better play it down because people might panic. I know one thing from doing this for 50 years. People in this country dont panic. People in this country are strong. Strry to go so long but its relevant. Host lets go to carolyn in georgia supporting the president. Hello, carolyn. Caller good morning. President trump is doing a very good job and we could make a whole list of all the good things he has done and i know that we have a lot of books coming out about President Trump seems to [inaudible] it will take me another minute to finish up but biden seems to have a portion of wellbeing and i just want to know if after two years and maybe this is something we need to know that after two years will harris become our first woman president . The last question i have. The plague always killed people which we hate but cspan, it would be good for them to have something on the death rate in this country. My understanding from reading is that we lose about 7000 people daily and they just die. Host understood, carolyn pitt mr. Woodward, talk about the president s handling of the coronavirus and you talk about the impeachment proceedings. At one point you are questioning him about whether or not he should apologize and you ask him who in the world as a person he trusts the most and it slain his answer. Guest well, i did but this was in the context and this was downbe at morrow lago before the virus became an issue and i think it was december 30 of last year and trump was impeachment trial in the senate was going on so i was able to ask him about this and its very clear from the transcript of his discussion with the ukrainian president that trump was asking the ukrainian president to talk to attorney general barr about the biden and what the bidens were doing in ukraine and i kept pressing the president and said you think its a p good policy r the president of the United States to be able or to ask foreign leaders to investigate political opponents. President kept insisting that it was all about corruption and i said well here is the transcript you released your own words and we got, it was pretty contentious because i kept going back to what was in the transcript he released and said you gave like Richard Nixon when nixon taperecorded his secret conversations, you gave the opposition a sword and trump did not believe this and we started talking more about nixon and i said look, if nixon a few months after watergate had come out and said, you know, this is illegal people did things and i am responsible and i apologize to the country and i apologized to the Democratic National committee and where they had the offices burglars broke into and just laid it out in a sorrowful way and nixon was not that soulful but if he had done this and had apologized and trump agreed that nixon had apologized watergate would have gone away and on this if you apologize and he never apologized and he did not do anything wrong but i said if we went back to this is a good policy and take your daughter who walked on this beautiful property in maralago and have a father daughter talk and ask her if he would recommend that you apologize and he said i will not do that and would not make any difference and it would not make any difference what anyone said and this is the problem with trump as president and he gets things in his head and he will not get them out. He will not listen to others and they have no process and as i go through an extensive detail in the book what hisis National Security team jim mcmanus sec secretary, secretary of defense, dan coats director of National Intelligence that they cant get through to him and he wont listen and its particularly tragic in the context of his virus and the 200,000 people in this country who died and by telling the truth the president could have diverted some of those. Host norman in massachusetts. Go ahead, the house is gasoline in early this morning and i am signing a quick question. Caller hello. Thank you. [inaudible] im worried about the future of freedom and the press in the Julian Sanchez case, would it be different under biden . Guest well, im always worried about freedom of the press. As i write in the book trump always accuses the press of being fake news and so forth and attacks the media but he hasnt sent the marshals or fbi agents to break into reporters homes or arrest them so my conclusion is this is on a happy note that democracy has held that we still have that trump often threatens this and this is thmething to worry about deeply but the problem is we have had a leadership failure there is a breakdown in the leadership of this country and it is, on so many levels, just a practical level, a moral level and the president has so much authority they have to jim amanda says trump does not have a moral compass and the president needs and has responsibility citizens of this country and unfortunately on so many levels he has let us down. Host mr. Woodward, will you write another book . Guest i am 77 yearsel old. I dont know. I did not really think i would write a second trump book after doing the first one so you know, no plan and i will take a little time off with my wife and we will enjoy some other things during this ten months of working on the trump book and she added that being six timesix and so forth i remember one night she said because we talk about these things so much and we were living and my god, the phone rang at 10 00 oclock and would be trump calling unexpectedly and i remember her saying i need one hour away from trump and trump world. Host mr. Woodward, we appreciate your time in the book is rage, come back again. Guest thank you. The first president ial debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President joe biden is tuesday night it 9 00 p. M. Eastern from cleveland could watch live on cspan. Biden has recklessly campaigning against this vaccine and all it is is political reasons, political reasons. Biden and his whole deal is catastrophic shutdown. Again in his own words recorded by bob woodward president knew back in february that this was an extremely dangerous communicable disease. Think about it. How many people across [inaudible] and how many enter chairs because of his negligence and selfishness. Watch the first president ial debate live from cleveland, tuesday night on cspan stream live or ondemand at cspan. Org debate or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Earlier today minority leader Chuck Schumer came to the senate to discuss the november election and respond roughly two comments present made yesterday. Madam president , our adversaries so disinformation