"IF I TURN OUT THE RACISTS, I'LL BEAT THE NON-RACISTS..."

The Guardian

Interviews by Jude Roberts and Andrew Anthony

"Bob Woodward: ‘I can’t think of a time I’ve felt more anxiety about the presidency."

Bob Woodward is an associate editor of the Washington Post and the author of 20 books on American politics. In 50 years as a journalist he has covered nine presidents. His reporting on the Watergate break-in and cover-up with his colleague Carl Bernstein helped bring down Richard Nixon and won the Post a Pulitzer prize. 

His latest book about Donald Trump, Rage, is based on 10 hours of interviews, spread over 19 taped phone calls, often initiated by the president himself, in which Trump proved “only too willing to blow the whistle on himself”, as the Observer’s review noted.

There is an atmosphere in Washington of high anxiety. Trump is melting down, to put it charitably. His campaign has been about lashing out, about wanting his former political opponents – President Obama and Joe Biden, who’s now running against him, of course – to be indicted then charged. Then there was his announcement that he is not necessarily going to accept the electoral result against him. The idea that the president would put in doubt the basic process of democracy and voting is not only unacceptable, it is a nightmare.

Now you have the added factor that Trump’s also had Covid-19 and he’s on steroids, saying things like, “It is a blessing from God that I got the virus”. 

I can’t think of anything more absurd, or crueler, than calling it a blessing from God. More than 210,000 people have died in the US. For the president of the US to talk like that is unbelievable, but I think people have become numb to it. 

The outrages pile up, in a way. People have forgotten the risks. I think Kamala Harris put it very well in the vice-presidential debate: what’s happened in the US with Covid-19 is the biggest failure of the president to exercise his responsibilities, perhaps in the history of the US.

"If there were to be some accident, some problem, during the final campaign weeks, he would capitalize on it."

This is a really dangerous period before the election. I got to know Trump very well in hours and hours of interviews I did with him for my book, Rage, and I think if there were to be some accident, some problem, during the final campaign weeks, he would capitalize on it. 

Henry Kissinger, of all people, was warning recently that we should worry about some sort of crisis, and reminded people that the first world war started because of an accident. Probably no one’s wanting to start a war right now, but we have a climate in the Middle East, and in the South China Sea, which China has really militarised, where you could have some spark trigger a mild confrontation – not that I think Trump’s going to manufacture that.Trump is not sufficiently tuned into the attitudes and experiences of other people, which is an essential requirement of a leader. 

After George Floyd was killed, I asked him about the tensions ignited in this country not seen since the heights of the civil rights movement. I said we were men of white privilege, that we’ve got to understand the pain and anger black people feel in this country. 

That’s when he said something that astonished me: “Wow, you sure drank the Kool-Aid! I don’t feel that at all.” He just rejected the idea that somehow white people have to understand the pain and anger of others. I think that’s one of his chief problems. He thinks in terms of his own pain and anger, and what he wants to do, which is to be re-elected.

"John Bolton: I once said to a psychologist that Trump doesn’t have character and he said, sure he does, he has a character defect..." 

Trump also told me the US has nuclear weapons that are so devastating even President Putin and President Xi of China don’t know about them. I’m not exactly sure even today whether he was exaggerating or talking about something real. But what’s a really important question to consider here is how much power is in the presidency: when we decide to go to war, whether you look at Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq, it’s all been led by the president, essentially, as commander in chief. 

As we’ve gone into a media environment of impatience and speed because of the internet, the president is also in this position to seize the airwaves. As his son-in-law Jared Kushner said, the news is going along and then Trump tweets something and everyone drops whatever it is. Trump realizes this. He uses it. He has that power. He loves being in control. He loves the spectacle. The circumstances have all converged here to give him extraordinary power.

To read rest of article, click on link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/25/deep-down-terrified-little-boy-bob-woodward-mary-trump-john-bolton-anthony-scaramucci-on-donald-trump