Another ‘bad’ book that damns the President of the United States

Was Tuesday, September 11, 2018 chosen deliberately to release Bob Woodward’s book on Trump in the White House? The 17th anniversary of the audacious attack on America could hardly have been a coincidence for what the US President clearly views as yet another hatchet job on his Presidency.

Woodward’s Fear—Trump in the White House is the latest tell-all book published this year which damns the US President. There have been a series of books this year targeting Trump. And Woodward’s Fear—Trump in the White House is a devastating attack on Trump’s Presidency and questions the system that allows any rich but dumb American to get elected to the highest office in the US.

A Higher Loyalty—Truth, Lies and Leadership by James Comey, the FBI chief Trump fired last year, Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff and Unhinged by Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former beauty queen, a Trump aide and a former White House staffer, are the other books which have reinforced the perception that Donald Trump is singularly unfit to hold the office he does.

The accounts are often merciless as when Omarosa recalls Trump insisting that he would be sworn in with his hand, not on the Bible, but on his ghost-written bestseller, The Art of the Deal. She also claims that the newly elected Trump wanted his inauguration to be turned into a paid event so that he could make money.

Or when Woodward quotes staffers recalling Steve Bannon fuming over Ivanka Trump’s unhindered access to the Oval Office and exclaiming, “She is a… (Expletive) staffer”. Ivanka is quoted as retorting, “I am not a staffer. I am the First Daughter”. Woodward, of the Watergate fame and whose investigation led to the resignation of US President Richard Nixon, is the iconic Washington Post reporter, known to be meticulous in his research.

The Washington Post actually published the transcript of a 11-minute conversation between President Trump and Woodward, in which Donald Trump complains that the journalist and writer did not get in touch with him directly before publication of the book. Bob Woodward explained that he had tried very hard, put in a request for an interview and followed it up in vain with six different people close to Trump. He also tells Trump that he was recording their conversation.

The book, a sneak preview of which was carried by the media last week, has also been criticised for relying on accounts by clearly disgruntled, former staffers, who may have had an axe to grind.

But there is little shock or surprise at the revelations made by Woodward. Americans clearly know by now the impulsive style of their President.

• Woodward writes that President Trump wanted to launch a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea and grumbled why the US had to spend so much to maintain the American military presence in the Korean peninsula. He also wanted to tweet an order asking family members of American military personnel in Korea to return home to signal that a strike was imminent.
• Trump apparently wanted to get the Syrian President assassinated. “Let’s kill him…let’s go in and kill the f…lot of them…” he is quoted as telling Secretary of Defence Mattis.
• President Trump comes across as a leader with a pathological capacity to lie.
• The former staffers are quoted by Woodward calling Trump a liar, a professional liar, an idiot and as one presiding over a ‘crazy town’. “He loves to feel presidential, without actually doing the work of governing…”