Cited in the book as well and other things, we are going to talk to him about. This on a day when the president announced a new list of potential nominees for Supreme Court vacancies should he be reelected. We have fox team coverage, peter doocy in michigan with what joe biden is saying today about the woodward book but first, Kristin Fisher is live on the north lawn with a very busy day at the white house. Good evening. Indeed, good evening, bret. President trump is calling Bob Woodwards new book a political hit job. But woodward says that the president granted him 18 on the record interviews and there are tapes. President trump telling author bob woodward he understood the severity of the coronavirus early on but had a reason to say publicly that it was under control. I think, to be honest i wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because i dont want to create a panic. His new book shows the president realizing covid19 was more dangerous than the common seasonal flu. Is a very tricky situation. It goes through air, bob, thats always tougher than the touch. The touch things, but the air, you just breathe the air, thats how its past. So thats a very tricky one. Thats a very delicate one. Its also more deadly than your you know, then even your strenuous flus. People dont realize we lose 25,000, 35 euros this is more deadly, 5 versus 1 and less than 1 , so this is deadly stuff. But publicly President Trump ejected an air of calm, saying things were under control. If you have the flu, you recuperate, you get better, and they are recuperating. Earlier today the president defended his public stance. I dont want people to be frightened. I dont want to create panic, as you say, and certainly im not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy. We want to show confidence, we want to show strength. Administration Officials Say the president took action early in the pandemic with travel restrictions with china in late january. I didnt get the sense he was distorting anything. In my discussions with them, they were always straightforward about the concerns that we had. But democrats quick to pounce on the president as being deceptive. There is proof that donald trump lied and people died. This report is totally believable. If we all know President Trump puts himself first, but this time, the consequences were deadly. While the white house scrambled to contain the political fallout from the books revelations, the president turned to a favorite topic of his base, judicial nominations. Apart from matters of war and peace, the nomination of a Supreme Court justice is the most important decision an american president can make. The president updating his list of possible Supreme Court candidates with 20 new names, among them three g. O. P. Senators, tom cotton, ted cruz, and josh hawley. News that the white house would have preferred to focus on today, a member of the Norwegian Parliament has nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his work on the historic peace deal between israel and the United Arab Emirates and that peace deal is going to be signed here at the white house next week. Bret. Bret thank you. As we mentioned, National Security advisor here on air in just a little bit. Joe biden sang President Trumps date mess of the start of the Coronavirus Crisis may have led to the death of tens of thousands of americans. The democratic residential nominee condemning the president based on the accusations in the woodward book. He made the comments during a Campaign Event in michigan aimed at highlighting bidens plans to keep american jobs in america. Corresponded peter doocy reports tonight. Joe biden was late to his event so he could get caught up on Bob Woodwards new reporting about President Trump. He failed to do his job on purpose. It was a lifeanddeath betrayal of the American People. Hes blaming what he calls early in action on covid19 for exaggerating economic problems that came with the pandemic. This is a recession created by Donald Trumps negligence and he is unfit for this job as a consequence of it. He also touched on the human soul. How many families are missing loved ones at their dinner table tonight because of his failures . Its beyond despicable. Its a dereliction of duty, its a disgrace. At one point biden read from a printed list of covid19 statistics but appears to have exaggerated here. Military covid deaths, 6,114. Because Seven Members of the u. S. Military have died from covid according to the defense department. Still, biden tried to contrast himself withdrawn. Donald trump and i have a pretty different philosophy when it comes to giving our word. If mine means something. The backdrop today, six american cars right off the assembly line. As they say in parts of my state, i got rung up on general motors. Hiring more American Workers in a biden administration. Make it in michigan, make it in america, invest in our communities and the workers in places like [indiscernible]. Thats what this is about. The Biden Campaign asked invited guests to stay away from events if they have any symptoms of covid19, but today the democratic nominee stopped himself multiple times to cough. We are going to hear a lot more about this. Still, he assured michigans Governor Gretchen Whitmer he is careful to follow all the states covid regulations. Socially distance, im allowed to take my mask off they tell me, but i promise i will put it back on. Late this afternoon, the Biden Campaign explained that mixup with the number that the former vp gave of military covid deaths versus the actual number from the pentagon, they say he just misspoke, he has all the statistics on a car that he carries around in his pocket. Bret. Bret peter doocy, thank you. The Trump Administration plans to reduce american troop strength in iraq by onethird, just in time for the president ial election. National security correspondent Jennifer Griffin reports tonight from the pentagon. Its the first time u. S. Forces have been withdrawn from iraq since 2016. Today the president and the pentagon, are announcing a drawdown of troops in iraq, Just Announced from 5,200 to 3,000. The general commander of the middle east made it official. This reduced footprint allows us to continue advising and assisting our iraqi partners in rooting out the final remnants of isis in iraq and ensuring its enduring defeat. In recent months, u. S. Forces have left a number of iraqi bases where they have been increasingly under attack by iranianbacked proxy forces. The uptick comes in the wake of President Trump ordering the assassination of the powerful iranian general in baghdad. Iran responded by launching Ballistic Missiles against u. S. Troops in iraq days later. In march, to go american troops in a British Army Medic were killed in a rocket attack. U. S. Military responded with air strikes. In North Carolina last night, President Trump weighed in. We kept america out of new wars and we are bringing our troops back home. We are bringing them back home. From all these faraway places. [cheers and applause] weve spent hundreds of billions of dollars and what do we get out of it . The u. S. Still has about 60,000 troops deployed in the middle east and operates about 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world. Bret. Bret Jennifer Griffin of the pentagon, thank you. Robert obrien is cited in the bob woodward book. We want to talk about that but also other issues. He joins us tonight from the white house. Thank you very much, welcome back to special report. Thanks, good to be with you. Bret is a quote in this book about the threat, generally 20th in the oval office, your quoted to say to the president this will be the biggest National Security threat you face in your presidency. This will be the roughest thing you face. It is not true . It is true. One of our oval intelligence briefs and it was something we were concerned about. Our job is to look around the corner and see threats that may be the ic or other folks arent seeing, it was a threat we saw and we conveyed it to the president. Either way, he took very prompt action. Within 48 hours of that warning and at the time there were no deaths in the u. S. , very few cases. He banned travel from china within 48 hours of us giving that advice and there were very few people that thought that was a good idea at the time other than the president , so i give him a lot of credit. Bret the actions are one thing, he often talks about those but what he saying about woodward behind the scenes in these interviews is different than what he saying publicly about it. Do you see a disparity there . I dont see a disparity. We saw the threat of the pandemic im not a Public Health professional or a doctor. We thought that this would be could potentially be a widespread pandemic. Ive seen this in a prior administration, the Bush Administration when we saw sars, swine flu, avian flu come out of china and we know the communist parties, their first reaction is to cover it up, so we had a gut feel that the chinese communists would cover this up the same way the soviets did with chernobyl so we saw a real threat. We didnt know at the time and the w. H. O. Was saying that there was no human to human transmission of the time. We were the chinese were downplaying it, we didnt know how it would play out as a virus. It turned out to be resilient and nasty, but at the time, we saw the threat of a pandemic, the president took extraordinary action but at the same time, he didnt want to panic folks and that the Public Health professionals and the w. H. O. And others were downplaying the threat. I think he just took the right approach, he was calm, resolute, he was confident and in the month of february he got the vaccine going, the therapeutics program, the ventilator Program Going and weve done things that havent been done since world war ii in this country. Bret on february 7th, he says china is working very hard. Late last night he had a very good talk with president xi, this is him on february 7th and he goes on to talk about how its passed through the air, the coronavirus. I guess there are multiple times where he talks about its going to go down to zero, we could play a montage after february 7th where he says its going to wash away, the covid coronavirus and your critics, the president s critics are saying because of that tens of thousands of people died instead of having action that could have warned them. Thats what theyre saying. What they are saying is flatly wrong. Its not true. The president saved thousands and thousands of lives. January 30 and announced on january 31 that were banning travel from china. Second, the biggest Industrial Program to create ventilators. At the start of this, bret, folks were saying that the doctors were going to make terrible decisions give young people ventilators and take old people often are leaders in that sort of thing, that never happened. The stockpile of ventilators we inherited was diminished, we rebuilt the stockpile, make sure that every american who needed one had one and weve given out over 16,000 ventilators around the world, so thats what we are standing up in february. So it was saving lives. Same with ppe production in the United States, same with vaccine production. We are going to have a vaccine well within a year of this virus taking hold here, which has never happened before. So the president took extraordinary action to save peoples lives, but at the time that he made those statements, we were being told by many people, by the w. H. O. , by the chinese themselves turned out not to be true, by Public Health professionals here, that there wasnt [indiscernible], that the virus would go away with warm weather. All of those things were being told to us. Its turned out they werent true unfortunately but the president was taking action notwithstanding with the establishment and the general opinion of this virus was. He was taking action to prepare for the worse and he saved thousands of lives as a result. Bret a couple more things about the book and a couple more topics, but why did the president sit down with bob woodward 18 times . Hes got 20 hours of tape. Listen, the president has been able to make his case to the American People. Hes answered more questions probably than any president in history, at least any president in my lifetime. He spends a lot of time with the press, spends a lot of time with the press, whether its walking to the chopper or air force one or the briefing room, and he gives a lot of oneonone time. And is willing to take the hard tough questions from journalists or probably opposed to him so i think the president made a decision that he was willing to go into the lions ring with bob woodward, the toughest Investigative Reporter of all time and i think look, he felt confident making the decision that Bob Woodwards put together i havent read the book, hes put together a book that wasnt kind towards the president , thats really a shame. Bret he concludes the book saying that the president does not fit, so i think you can get that judgment. If you are quoted in the book a couple of times, but the president tells woodward about a weapons system. He says i built a Nuclear Weapons system nobodys ever had in this country. We have stuff that you havent seen, even seen or heard about, we have stuff that putin and president xi have never heard about before. What we have is incredible. It says that National Security officials were surprised that he talked about that since a lot of it is classified, what is he talking about . Are not going to get into what hes talking about what you can rest assured that the men and women will manufacture our weapons and who have always had us on the cutting edge, whether it was back in the old days of the f117 nighthawk to the b2 bomber, the f22, f35. We are always on the cutting edge and weve got something out there that our adversaries dont know about. If the president didnt talk about any specific weapons system, but you can rest assured that we can protect the United States of america against any foe, any threat thats out there because of the excellent manufacturing that we do here, the research and development that we do here in the fine men and women, servicemen and women who manned those platforms. Bret speaking about that, after the atlantic piece, the president on monday said this about military leadership. Sorry, i think that sound bite here you go, lets listen. Im not saying the military is in love with me. The soldiers are. The top people in the pentagon probably are because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those Wonderful Companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make Everything Else stay happy. Many of these leaders have sons and daughters who have gone to combat or may be in combat right now, so i can assure the American People that the Senior Leaders would only recommend sending our troops to combat when its required for National Security and a last resort. Spoon obviously the army chief of staff, do believe that the Senior Leadership wants to send people to war . Look, i think the point that the president was making was a very similar point that Dwight Eisenhower made in his address as president when he talked about the militaryindustrial complex and hes been lionized and lauded across the political spectrum. The president just made a similar point. Of the troops love the president , the president has supported the troops. Hes increased the Defense Budget from those terrible days that we had under obamabiden when literally the troops didnt have the ammunition on the readiness and the tools necessary to defend themselves. Thats been turned around. And like ronald reagan, the first president since reagan who hasnt started a war so the present would like to get our troops, soldiers, sailors and airmen and marines home, we want to shift those burdens to our partners and allies and bring those troops home and i think he was making that point, hes got a great relationship with the chairman of the joint chiefs, the other Senior Leaders in the pentagon. Uniformed leaders in the pentagon and ive seen that up close and personal. I know they have terminus affection for him. Bret he often with World Leaders talks about how much they are buying from the Defense Industrial complex and what weapons theyre buying and how much theyre paying, so just an interesting thing that raised eyebrows. I want to ask about this we want our partners to burden s