WASHINGTON (CNN) — During an Oval Office interview with then-President Donald Trump in December 2019, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward asked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if his belligerent rhetoric was intended to bring Kim to the table.
“No. No. It was designed for what it was designed for. Who knows? Instinct. Let’s talk about instinct, okay?” Trump said. “Because you never know what’s going to happen. But it was very harsh rhetoric. Very harsh.”
Trump ordered his aides to show Woodward photos of him with Kim in the demilitarized zone. “It’s me and him. That’s the line, right? So I went over the line. So good. You know? So good. Right?” The then President said.
Trump’s admission that there is no broader strategy behind his threats to take his relationship with Kim and have a “much bigger” nuclear button is part of a new Woodward audiobook titled “The Trump Tapes.” 20 Journalist Interviews with Trump from 2016 to 2020
CNN obtained a copy of the audiobook ahead of its Oct. 25 release, which features more than eight hours of unedited interviews with Trump from journalists interspersed with Woodward’s comments.
Credit: Simon & Schuster
The interviews delve into the former president’s worldview, and the most detailed recordings of Trump talking about his presidency, including the reasons for his meeting with Kim, his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and viewing Trump’s detailed statements. US nuclear arsenal.
The audio also shows how Trump decided to share with Woodward Kim’s letters to himLetters that helped inspire Judicial inquiry On the classified documents Trump brought to Mar-a-Lago: “Don’t say I showed them to you, okay?” Trump Woodward said.
Woodward says in the book’s introduction that he is releasing the recordings in part because “hearing Trump speak is a completely different experience than reading transcripts or listening to snippets of interviews on television or the Internet.”
He describes Trump as “vulgar, profane, divisive and deceitful. His language is often vindictive.”
“However, he’s likable, entertaining, laughing, always the host. He’s trying to win me over, sell me his presidency. A full-time salesman,” Woodward said. “I wanted to put Trump’s voice, his own words, into the historical record so people can listen and judge and make their own assessments.”
Most of the interviews were conducted for Woodward’s second book about Trump, “Rage,” which revealed that Trump had told Woodward on February 7, 2020, that Covid-19 was “something deadly,” but still publicly downplayed it.
While Woodward’s book contains the most important revelations, the audio clips from the interviews serve as a reminder of how Trump has fared as president and provide an honest look at Trump’s thinking and motivations as he prepares to run for president. In 2024.
“All Mine”
In interviews, Trump shares his thoughts on strongmen he admires, including Kim, Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and expresses his general belief that he is the smartest person in the room.
In a June 2020 interview following the national protests over George Floyd, Woodward asked Trump if he would help him write his speech declaring himself the “leader of law and order.”
“I understand, I understand people. They come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. The ideas are mine,” Trump told Woodward in a June 2020 interview. “You want to know something? It’s mine. You know, everything. Every part.”
The 20 interviews in the audiobook begin in March 2016, when Woodward and then-Washington Post colleague Robert Costa interviewed Trump when he was a presidential candidate. The remaining interviews were conducted in 2019 and 2020.
In a December 2019 interview, Woodward grilled Trump about North Korea’s nuclear program, prompting him to boast about U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities while appearing to unveil a new, and highly classified, weapons system, one of the most notable episodes. Book “Anger”.
Woodward says he’s never been able to establish what Trump was referring to, though he notes that Trump’s comment reaffirmed the “casual and dangerous way” the former president handled classified information.
“I’ve built a weapons system like no one in this country has ever had,” Trump told Woodward. “We have things you haven’t seen or heard. We have things Putin and Xi have never heard.”
Throughout the interviews, Trump referred to his relationship with Putin, blaming the FBI’s investigation into Russian election meddling for destroying any chance of improving relations between the two countries.
“I like Putin. We want our relationship to be very good. I campaigned to get along with Russia, China and everybody,” Trump said in an interview in January 2020. “Getting involved with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Right?” right? Specifically they have 1,332 warships.”
In a rare moment of self-reflection, Trump noted that he had a great relationship with leaders, saying “they’re tough and nasty.”
“I get along well with Erdogan because you shouldn’t because everyone says he’s a terrible guy. But it works out well for me,” Trump said in a January 2020 interview.
“It’s funny, the relationships I’ve had, they’ve been rough and tumble, and I’ve been fine with them. You know?” He continued.
“Explain it to me sometime, all right. But that’s not a bad thing. I just might not like or get used to the easy ones.”
New audio from Trump’s inner circle
Woodward’s audiobook includes never-before-heard interviews with Trump’s then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien, his deputy Matthew Pottinger, and behind-the-scenes audio with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
During a February 2020 call with Woodward, Trump gave Kushner the phone to set up interviews with other Trump advisers.
“What I’ve heard from the president is that I’m working for you now, so I’ll make that time available to you and I’ll make sure I get you a good list,” Kushner said.
“I want you to know that I’m under no illusion that you work for me. I know you work for Ivanka, right?” Woodward joked.
Kushner laughed. “Okay, okay, you got it. You got it. That’s why you’re Bob Woodward. Really.”
Across the records, Donald Trump Jr., Melania Trump, Sen. Several Trump advisers, associates and family members can be heard in the background, including Lindsey Graham, Hope Hicks and others. The audio offers an inside look at Trump’s inner circle, like a 2016 exchange in which Trump was asked whether he expected government employees to sign non-disclosure agreements, and his son chimed in.
“I’m not going to get paid next week until I sign,” Donald Trump Jr. joked.
In the epilogue to “The Trump Tapes,” Woodward says his own past assessments of the Trump presidency were inadequate. In “Rage,” Woodward wrote, “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”
Now, Woodward says, “Trump is an incomparable danger. The data now shows that Trump has led, and continues to lead, a treasonous plot to nullify the 2020 election, an attempt to destroy democracy.”
