Trump is to Blame for Woodward, Too

(Trump on the telephone via speakerphone in the Oval Office of the White House on August 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Photo by Win McNamee, via Getty Images.)

Excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book, “Rage” started to come out yesterday and many of them revealed shocking conversations between the journalist and Trump. In a series of taped conversations, Trump admitted to Woodward that he knowingly played down the seriousness of the coronavirus early on, even though he knew just how dangerous and life-threatening the virus would be to so many.

“This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward during a taped call on Feb. 7 — “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed.” Trump continued, “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.

At the same time, Trump made a deliberate choice to tell the nation the exact opposite — that the virus was no worse than a seasonal flu. He also made a point to go on camera and make sensational statements predicting the virus would soon disappear on its own, while insisting that the US government had the pandemic under complete control. Donald Trump intentionally called the coronavirus a hoax, many times over, while knowing the truth — this virus was going to kill thousands.

He also dispatched Republican talking heads to cable news outlets, to push the idea of choosing to keep the economy moving and stores open, despite the risk, because the danger was so low compared to the irreversible damage of stopping the US economy.

(Trump speaks to the media prior to departing from the South Lawn of the White House on July 5, 2019. Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP, via Getty Images.)

During a March 19 taped conversation, Trump confessed to Woodward that he was deliberately minimizing the danger. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump said. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” But the argument that Trump sold the coronavirus as just a seasonal flu to protect people does not match all of the extraneous events that had already led a majority of Americans to understand the gravity of Covid-19.

Governor Cuomo had already begun his daily press briefings, and many outside of New York had turned to him for calm a measured leadership once it became clear that Trump was ignoring the immediate emergencies. News of how the coronavirus was ravaging Italy, which had become the Covid epicenter recording thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths a day, was in the forefront as Americans were waiting for a federal plan that never came.

If the president were truly so concerned about quelling a panic, there would be some evidence of his administration working behind the scenes to remediate portions of the emergency. Instead, governors were left to fend for themselves and bid for supplies on the open market. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) had to obtain coronavirus tests from South Korea, fly them in under a shroud of secrecy and then place them under lock and key in an undisclosed location, protected by the Maryland National Guard.

Trump was not making an attempt to “play down” the danger of the virus — he was taking active measures to keep Americans from getting access to Covid tests, because it represented proof of what Trump was intentionally hiding. In February, Trump declined to use the World Health Organization’s tests that they had offered to ship to the US, even temporarily as a bridge until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could produce its own test.

(Trump talks to reporters while hosting Republican congressional leaders and members of his Cabinet in the Oval Office on July 20, 2020. Photo by Doug Mills, via Getty Images.)

Trump was not only lying to the public about the severity of the virus, he was taking active measures to deny Americans access to tests and critical PPE equipment, necessary to protect the front line workers. These latest taped conversations now show the vast difference between the Trump that addressed reporters as a scattered and nonchalant character and the Trump who was concise and direct with explaining the true danger of the virus to Woodward. What Trump told the world was all another act.

Now many are running to place blame on those around Trump, deflecting the responsibility from the shoulders of the primary culprit once again, to say the president was tricked or told speaking to Woodward was a good idea. As the news began to surface yesterday many wondered how White House staff could let this happen and why Trump would be so candid with Woodward when he masked that persona so well from the public.

Pundits are also rushing to lay blame on those who may have encouraged Trump to do the Woodward interviews in a sick attempt to appease Trump’s need to shirk all responsibility. Last night, in another unscrupulous and obvious bid for Trump’s approval, Tucker Carlson did a segment blaming Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-NC) for pushing the interview.

Amee Vanderpool @girlsreallyrule

Watch as Tucker Carlson blames Lindsey Graham for setting up the Bob Woodward interview to please Trump, who is no doubt watching closely. They are all starting to eat each other.

Reporter Jim Acosta revealed that White House officials had warned Trump that talking to Bob Woodward was a bad idea, but Trump decided to move forward with the hours of interviews anyway. Acosta also mentioned that a “source, who has direct knowledge of discussions, said Trump and Kushner thought Woodward interviews were a good idea.” Clearly members of the Trump administration were rushing to leak an anonymous statement that it wasn’t their fault and simultaneously throw Kushner under the bus.

But while we remain intent on fixing blame for who allowed Trump to conduct the interviews, we are overlooking the most critical aspect of what has happened: Trump was the one who spoke to Woodward for 18 separate interviews between December 5, 2019 and July 21, 2020. Trump was the one who made the decision to hide the truth about Covid while making a point to encourage half of the country to risk their own health.

(Trump on the phone in the Oval Office of the White House. Photo by Jonathan Ernst, via Reuters.)

He pushed unproven and dangerous remedies, he denied the real data of what was happening and he fired anyone who resisted his plan and favored telling the truth. This wasn’t just a plan that would knowingly result in the deaths of thousands of Americans, it was, and still is, an active cover up.

We have been sold a character actor who pretends to be befuddled so that when he repeats the same misleading and false statements, it won’t appear as if it was completely intentional all along. What was most shocking about the reveal concerning Trump’s true culpability wasn’t that he had actually made a point to mislead people; that was obvious while it was happening. These taped conversations provided a surprising reminder that we are dealing with someone who intends exactly what they do, while using the bumbling Trump facade to hypnotize before they strike.

Just as we would with a snake biting an innocent victim, we seem intent on making excuses about how the behavior is inherent in their nature and they can’t help themselves. The only person responsible for creating and enacting this devious course of action that has led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people, is the same person who is responsible for the very words that come out of his own mouth while he knows he is on the record and being recorded — Donald Trump is responsible for it all.

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Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter and is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.

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