Bob Woodward’s new book, “War,” has what we have come to expect as the usual number of blockbuster revelations, proving once again his skill at loosening the lips of those close to power. My favorite is a story that in the midst of drastic shortages at home and abroad, Donald Trump was sending COVID tests off to his authoritarian buddy in the Kremlin, who was warning him not to tell anyone he’d done it. “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me.” Two buddies looking out for each other — the then-president and the dictator of the evil empire.
Woodward, who has been writing about presidents and their secrets for 50 years, comes to the conclusion that Trump was the “most reckless and impulsive president in American history and is demonstrating the very same character as a presidential candidate in 2024.” Worse than Richard Nixon, who resigned the presidency in large part because of the reporting of Woodward and Carl Bernstein. For his part, Trump, through a campaign spokesman, dismissed “the made-up stories,” and stated that the book “either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue.”
My prediction is the bestseller list, but the real question is whether it matters. Is there anything new you can tell a Trump voter that will change their vote?
It has not been a good time for Trump in the mainstream media. There have been numerous reports of how he has been going off the deep end in his latest round of rallies and interviews. He started out in Butler, Pa., with a restrained homage to the man who died at the rally, and ended up on a rant against immigrants, repeating much-fact checked falsehoods about immigrants driving up crime (which is actually down).