In a new book written by journalist Bob Woodward, there is previously unpublished information about the Trump and Biden administrations. The information included things such as former Pres. Trump sending COVID tests needed in the U.S. to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Pres. Biden making derogatory statements about fellow politicians.
Woodward has been work-ing as a journalist for more than 50 years and is best known for his time at The Washington Post where he and Carl Bernstein helped uncover the Watergate scandal in 1972. Watergate was a scandal that involved five burglars breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters. It later turned out that these five burglars had ties to Pres. Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. Nixon’s administration would later attempt to cover up the investigation and obstruct justice which led to his eventual resignation in 1974. Woodward had also reported on other scandals throughout his career, such as the Plame scandal in 2005 and a scandal about campaign finance in 1996.
He has also written multiple books which included information he didn’t report on previously, as a journalist. His new book “War” does this, and while it is not out yet, nuggets of information have been reported by multiple prominent media outlets such as The New York Times and CNN. Woodward has been criticized for not reporting or writing about some of the information revealed in the book when these events occurred. As people would believe that a journalist would report on information as soon as possible. This continues the trend of several known political figures revealing information through books and not in real time, such as Trump’s cabinet members John Bolton and Mark Esper.
While Bob Woodward is probably more famous for uncovering the infamous Watergate scandal, on record he has said that Trump’s actions are “worse than Nixon” which has led to some curiosity on if the book could be an October surprise when it releases on Oct. 15. From the book, we learn that while Trump sent COVID tests over to Putin amid a U.S. shortage of COVID tests. Trump was also urged to keep the information secret from Putin. Trump’s campaign staff deny this story. Trump’s relationship with Putin has been controversial over the years, and the book also reaffirms this with Wood-ward reporting that Trump made as many as seven phone calls to Putin post-presidency. As with the COVID test story, the Trump campaign denies the phone calls happened.
The book includes information about the U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina. Graham had previously been a vocal critic of Trump, but later became a close ally. Graham has been mired in controversy for some of his opinions and actions such as on foreign policy and calling Georgia’s Secretary of State in 2020 to see if enough votes could be thrown out to give the state to Trump. But despite that, Graham admitted in the new book that Biden won the 2020 election and even said he told Trump to stop talking about the election if he wants to win in 2024. Graham compared Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, to North Korea, where people at the club always would cheer for Trump when he walks around like with Kim Jong-Un, Supreme Leader of North Korea. Graham has not commented on the situation yet.
The book also revealed information about derogatory comments about fellow leaders from President Biden. For example, Biden referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “(censored) liar” and a “son of a (censored)” after Netanyahu’s invasion of Rafah in Gaza. Biden also made a remark about U.S. Senator Joe Man-chin from West Virginia about him upholding some of his agenda, “what a (censored) (censored) Joe Manchin is.”
Some U.S. intelligence before and after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine was also revealed such as Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris fearing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would die during the invasion and the Biden administration fearing that there was a 50/50 chance nuclear weapons would be deployed by Russia during the invasion. Biden while vice president in 2014 was also said to have been upset that then-Pres. Barack Obama was not not being aggressive enough against Russia in Crimea.
Other pieces of information from the book include Biden regretting picking Merrick Garland to be his attorney general, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman owning an estimated 50 burner phones, and how various members of Biden’s cabinet discussed the possibility of dropping out of the race to him. Readers will learn more after the book is officially released Tuesday.
