Woodward Reports Top Trump Officials — From Mattis to Fauci — Blasted President: ‘His Sole Purpose Is to Get Re-Elected’
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Bob Woodward’s new book on President Donald Trump features shocking quotes, from top administration officials, on the president’s fitness for office.
That’s according to a fresh batch of reports on the upcoming book, Rage. Woodward has new reporting on comments from White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, who has lauded Trump’s leadership throughout the pandemic, as he had his own brush with Covid-19. Woodward documented a meeting where O’Brien told Trump “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency…This is going to be the roughest thing you face.”
Meanwhile, in audio recorded by Woodward earlier this year, Trump revealed he considered the virus “deadly” but said he purposefully downplayed it in public.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to Woodward, expressed his frustration with Trump’s “rudderless” leadership and said the president was “on a separate channel” during coronavirus task force meetings.
Per the Washington Post:
“His attention span is like a minus number,” Fauci said, according to Woodward. “His sole purpose is to get reelected.”
In one Oval Office meeting recounted by Woodward, after Trump had made false statements in a news briefing, Fauci said in front of him: “We can’t let the president be out there being vulnerable, saying something that’s going to come back and bite him.” Pence, Kushner, chief of staff Mark Meadows and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller tensed up at once, Woodward writes, surprised Fauci would talk to Trump that way.
Woodward describes Fauci as particularly disappointed in [Jared] Kushner for talking like a cheerleader as if everything was great.
Woodward describes how former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats all expressed grave concern over Trump’s leadership.
More from the Washington Post report on Rage:
Mattis quietly went to Washington National Cathedral to pray about his concern for the nation’s fate under Trump’s command and, according to Woodward, told Coats, “There may come a time when we have to take collective action” since Trump is “dangerous. He’s unfit.”
In a separate conversation recounted by Woodward, Mattis told Coats, “The president has no moral compass,” to which the director of national intelligence replied, “True. To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”
Woodward goes on to say Trump complained to White House trade adviser Peter Navarro that “my f*cking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.”
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