Lordy, there are tapes.
We all knew Trump is okay with people dying, and even getting killed if it benefits him politically and financially, but somehow it still shocks the senses to hear it in his own voice on tape. Bob Woodward provides such tapes as his book chronicling his interviews with Donald Trump over the last few years, Rage, has been released.
Robert Costa broke the news today that Donald Trump knew as far back as February 2020 that COVID-19 was much worse than the flu, was spread through droplets in the air (airborne), and affected young people and children as well as adults. Yet we have on record his lies continually downplaying and refuting those very dangers — contradicting them directly! Calling those facts 'hoaxes!"
He told Woodward he only wanted to avoid panicking the people, but we all know he really wanted to avoid shutting down the nation economically, because the illusion of a strong economy is the only thing he had going for him in the upcoming election. So, he pretended there was no NEED to shut down schools and businesses for (what, at this point seems) a short time, in order to get the virus under control.
“This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien told Trump, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. “This is going to be the roughest thing you face.”
Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, agreed. He told the president that after reaching contacts in China, it was evident that the world faced a health emergency on par with the flu pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.
Ten days later, Trump called Woodward and revealed that he thought the situation was far more dire than what he had been saying publicly.
“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a Feb. 7 call. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”
“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.
In addition to the COVID lies he astonishingly admits to (why is he telling these things to Woodward, knowing he is being recorded?) Trump makes a number of other statements to Woodward, thinking these are things that the author/journalist will find impressive. Among them:
- Trump laughs and tells Woodward he has "drunk the Kool-aid" when Woodward suggests that they both might be privileged and asks if they ought to try to understand the pain Black people are expressing right now.
- Trump privately called President Barack Obama "Barack Hussein," but not to his face, so as to be "very nice." He also told Woodward that Korean President Kim Jung Un thought Pres. Obama was an "*sshole."
- He claims the CIA "knows nothing" about how to handle North Korea, and that he "gave up nothing" in negotiations with Kim Jung Un.
- Trump told Woodward about U.S. weapons that no one has ever seen or heard about ever, anywhere!
Woodward writes that anonymous people later confirmed that the U.S. military had a secret new weapons system, but they would not provide details, and that the sources were surprised Trump had disclosed it.
- He told Peter Navarro, “Not to mention my fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals."
General James Mattis was so troubled by what he saw in Trump's leadership, he told Dan Coats that they may have to take "collective action" to stop him.
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.”
Even George W. Bush refused to attempt to counsel Trump, knowing Trump would not understand, or would spin his words into something he didn't say. When Bush The Younger comes off as the savvy, prudent one, you know we're in trouble.
Buckle up.
