Well of course. To Trump our troops who made the ultimate sacrifice to protecting and serving our nation are just suckers and losers who knew what they signed up for.

Trump resented having to sign letters for US troops killed in Afghanistan during his presidency because he didn't want to 'attach his name to a war he disliked,' a book says
Warren Rojas,John L. Dorman
Thu, October 6, 2022 at 8:42 AM



Then-President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence observe on February 10, 2020, the dignified transfer of two US soldiers killed in Afghanistan.JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

• 
  Trump hated signing killed-in-action letters that could link him to a war he oversaw, a book says.
  
  
• The reporter Maggie Haberman describes in her new book Trump's views of the 20-year Afghanistan War.
  
  
• He said in 2019 it's hard to sign letters to families of troops killed in conflicts, the book says.
  

Years before Donald Trump captured the presidency in 2016, he had voiced his strong opposition to the US presence in Afghanistan, railing against the war that began after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and toppled the Taliban-led government, which would emerge victorious in 2021.

In August 2012, Trump tweeted that Afghanistan was "a complete waste," adding that it was time for American troops to "come home."

During a March 2016 GOP presidential debate, Trump's message shifted: "Well, on Afghanistan, I did mean Iraq. I think you have to stay in Afghanistan for a while because of the fact that you're right next to Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons, and we have to protect that."

Just a few months into his first term in the White House, Trump seemed uncomfortable with the war in Afghanistan, and he resented having to sign "killed-in-action" letters, which in his mind, linked him to a conflict that he did not personally like but oversaw, a new book by the New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman says.

In the book, "Confidence Man," Haberman writes that Trump, who had generally been focused on North Korea as it related to international affairs, wanted to end the conflict in Afghanistan — but faced resistance.

"He fixated on North Korea and its nuclear capabilities, having his National Security Council draw up a menu of options, from the equivalent of annihilation to total appeasement, and a series of possibilities in between," the book says. "One high-level option involved personal contact with the country's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, but months passed before that option was visited."

It adds: "Trump cared about fulfilling a campaign promise, but aides were struck that he seemed rattled by the number of deaths involved; over time, he came to resent every 'Killed in Action' letter he was forced to sign after a service member died, not wanting to attach his name to a war he disliked and its needless deaths."

The war in Afghanistan claimed 2,324 American troops, as well as 3,917 contractors, according to Brown University's "Costs of War" project. The war was fought at the direction of four US commanders in chief, their defense secretaries, and the officers who reported to them.

All these presidents, and they alone, had the power to end US involvement in the war.

Like Trump, President Joe Biden pledged to end the conflict and accept the possibility of a Taliban victory — which came so fast it surprised Biden and his top advisors — but it's only Trump, the book says, who sought to distance himself from this responsibility to comfort the troops' family, an emotionally rending task that many presidents have struggled with.

In remarks from October 2019, Trump recounted the difficulties in signing letters to the families of the service members killed in conflicts.

"The hardest thing I have to do is signing those letters. That's the hardest thing I have to do," he said at the time.

He added: "And each letter is different. We make each letter different. And last week, I signed of them for Afghanistan, one in Iraq, one in Syria, from two weeks ago. And sometimes, I call the parents. I go to Dover when I can, but it's — it's so devastating for the parents that — you know."

As a candidate and then as president, Trump was repeatedly embroiled in controversies centering on families of slain troops. An Army sergeant's widow said the president forgot her late husband's name in a condolence call. Trump questioned the point of a Marine's sacrifice while talking to his father at the service member's Arlington National Cemetery grave, The Atlantic reported in 2020. He even suggested that he contracted COVID-19 from a gathering of Gold Star families.

In February 2020, the Trump administration signed a peace deal with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, setting the framework for the US withdrawal in Afghanistan that would trigger the collapse of its US-backed government.

Biden would go on to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, in a process that was widely criticized as chaotic, despite the unpopularity of the war. In an August 2021 Insider poll, respondents blamed former President George W. Bush for the prolonged engagement more than any other US leader.

Trump, for his part, has rebuked Biden over the withdrawal, even though the Trump administration negotiated the abrupt withdrawal that Biden delayed and lacked plans to evacuate Americans and Afghans who had worked with them.

The issue will surely come up if the two men face off against each other in an anticipated 2024 presidential rematch.

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-resented-having-sign-letters-144242946.html

 

Rent free
Tax free

 

@stumbler refuses to recognize that Trump has a worse chance of being elected president than Liz Cheney. He likes to pretend that Trump is the boogie man because in 2016 Trump committed the unpardonable sin of slipping the throne out from under stumblers man(woman) that had been promised to her. Stumbler loves to insult and attack anyone not in lockstep with his political agenda.
Stumbler fails.

 

This is basically the same criticism I have always had of MAGA Haberman. She had incredible access to Trump. He avoided any news outlet that wasn't a right wing false propaganda noise machine like the plague. Except for Haberman. So there she is supposedly reporting for the NYT. But instead was a Trump stenographer who only wrote what he said without ever challenging him on his lies or even asking follow up questions. Because the first time she did or wrote anything unflattering about him that wold be the last time Trump even talked to her. And now just like almost all the rest of them instead of reporting things in real time when it could have made a difference they saved it for their books.

And think about that. What if Haberman had reported in November or December of 2020 Hey listen Trump actually does know he lost the election. He absolutely knows there was no massive voter fraud. And all of this you are hearing is nothing but lies designed to help him try and stay in poser. And by the way did you know Trump, the White House, and his campaign are deeply and actively trying to pull off the first coup in American history? You need to really pay attention to that because it looks like we are headed for an armed insurrection. All that is in her book. But instead of reporting it at the time when it might have headed off the armed insurrection she just sat on it and let it happen. To sell her book.

'It's not on the level': Steve Schmidt buries Maggie Haberman for holding back info on Trump for her book

Tom Boggioni
October 08, 2022



Maggie Haberman, Donald Trump (White House photo)


Appearing very early Saturday morning on MSNBC with host Medhi Hasan, former Republican Party campaign strategist Steve Schmidt scorched high-profile journalists who withheld information about misdeeds in Donald Trump's administration so they could publish them later after getting book deals.

Claiming the too-late revelations is one additional reason why the public mistrusts the media, Schmidt focused on the New York Times' Maggie Haberman whose book " Confidence Man" came out this week.

With Schmidt declaring "It's not on the level," the two discussed the revelation in Haberman's book that the former president admitted to her that he took items from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort should have been reported earlier -- particularly in light of the DOJ's current investigation of Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act.

Claiming we are living in a "media-ocracy," Schmidt explained to the MSNBC host, "Now, the New York Times is specifically in this case, calls itself the 'paper of record.' Now, the New York Times as an institution, judged against the collapse of trust, faithfully and belief n the news in the media companies."

ALSO IN THE NEWS: Here's why Trump probably hasn't returned all the classified documents he took from the White House: analysis

"And the fact that is it is a powerful billion dollar company and that Haberman is a celebrity, million dollar a year journalist reporter," he continued. "Are these people immunized from any public criticism? I see an inherent conflict of interest. I also see a conflict when you have a reporter who is referred to by the president that she is covering as his psychiatrist."

"What she did on a daily basis, what happens every day, is the bestowment of anonymous sourcing on people that she knows to be not credible in the White House," he continued. "Everybody knew the president read the New York Times about him. And what the White House officials did was jockey for favor with Haberman in a broad trading of misinformation and tidbits that are, as I just said, later commoditized."

"I think that all that adds to a collapse of trust and faith and belief in media which fuels the political instability in the country," he added.

Watch below or at the link:



https://www.rawstory.com/maggie-haberman-donald-trump-2658413988/
.

 

Oh year s7re. That would be all Trump needed to declare the insurrection act and martial law. And just look at the martyr treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans made of even one domestic terrorist getting shot.

Lindsey Graham told an officer who was beaten with a flag pole during the Capitol attack that he should have shot rioters 'in the head,' new book reveals

Lindsey Graham told an officer who was beaten with a flag pole during the Capitol attack that he should have shot rioters 'in the head,' new book reveals

• 
  

Taylor Ardrey
Sat, October 8, 2022 at 1:46 PM·2 min read


In this article:

• 
  

• 
  

• 
  Lindsey Graham
  American politician

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images

• 
  Lindsey Graham reportedly told officers they should have shot Jan. 6 rioters "in the head," Politico reported citing a new book by Michael Fanone.
  
  
• "I don't understand why that didn't happen," Graham said, per the book obtained by the outlet.
  
  
• The comments were made during a meeting with a group of officers in May 2021, Politico reported.
  

Lindsey Graham offered advice about how officers should have responded during the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack, saying they should have shot the rioters in the head, according to a new book obtained by Politico.

The outlet reported that the GOP South Carolina senator made the remarks during a meeting with the group last May.


"You guys should have shot them all in the head," Graham said, per former DC police officer Michael Fanone's book "Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop's Battle for America's Soul," which is set to publish on Oct. 11.

"We gave you guys guns, and you should have used them," Graham added, per the book. "I don't understand why that didn't happen."

According to Politico, the family of the late officer Brian Sicknick as well as Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and Fanone, were present during the exchange. Fanone, who was stun-gunned and beaten with a flag pole during the insurrection, responded to Graham saying that officers had to follow the rules regarding using deadly force.

Pro-Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building as Congress was certifying the 2020 presidential election. The attack prompted lawmakers to evacuate as rioters attacked police and pushed their way into the historic building.

A Washington Post report revealed that Graham, who backed Trump's baseless claims about the election, snapped at officers at the scene during the chaotic attack.

"He yelled at the Senate sergeant-at-arms. 'What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You've got guns. Use them,'" Graham said, according to the outlet.

Read the original article on Business Insider


https://www.yahoo.com/news/lindsey-graham-told-officer-beaten-194604633.html

 

Michael Fanone: Trump supporters think I'm the 'love child of Nancy Pelosi' and faked Jan. 6 body camera footage

Brad Reed
October 10, 2022



Washington Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone testifies during the House select committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. - Andrew Harnik/Pool/TNS


Former Washington Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone appeared on CNN Monday to talk about his new book that includes details of secretly recorded conversations he had last year with House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

During a conversation with host Brianna Keilar, Fanone took aim at some of the politicians spreading misinformation about the January 6th Capitol riots, which he said has caused even some longtime acquaintances to not believe what he experienced that day after being assaulted by Trump supporters, including false claims that he faked body camera footage of the deadly riots.

"Rhetoric from these politicians combined, with some of the alt-right or right-wing propaganda, people believe that stuff," he said. "There have been a whole slew of conspiracies that have kind of popped up about me. The hardest thing to accept is people that have known me for, in some cases, decades buying into a lot of that crap, the idea that I work for the FBI and I've been a plant in the Metropolitan Police Department for two decades waiting for this moment."

Fanone also said that some Trump supporters believe that "I was somehow spawned from a Petri dish and am the love child of Nancy Pelosi."

IN OTHER NEWS: Trump sounded 'guilty and scared' during his latest rally rant: Former federal prosecutor

"Actually, people believe it!" Fanone marveled.

Watch the video below or at this link.



https://www.rawstory.com/michael-fanone-2658419493/

 

Of course Kevin the Coward cannot control anything. Because he is a gutless traitor to the United States of America.

Former DC Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone says Kevin McCarthy told him he couldn't 'control' the 'fringe members' of the GOP over Jan. 6 statements

John L. Dorman
Sun, October 9, 2022 at 9:51 AM



Former Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone.AP Photo/Julio Cortez

• 
  Michael Fanone said Kevin McCarthy told him he couldn't "control" GOP "fringe" over Jan. 6 views.
  
  
• In an interview with CNN's Don Lemon, Fanone recounted his disappointment after meeting with the GOP leader.
  
  
• The former Metropolitan Police officer's book, "Hold the Line," will be released on Tuesday.
  

Former Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police office Michael Fanone in a recent interview said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told him that he couldn't "control" the fringe members of the GOP regarding their opinions of the January 6, 2021, riot at the United States Capitol.

Fanone — who served as a Metropolitan officer for roughly 20 years before resigning from the force last December — told CNN anchor Don Lemon on "Don Lemon Tonight" that it was he was shocked by the California Republican's inability to reign in members of his party who were downplaying and minimizing the events of January 6.


The former officer — who is now an on-air contributor to the network — informed Lemon that after leaving a meeting with McCarthy last year, he felt "disillusioned and depressed."

"He didn't really say a whole lot of anything. There really wasn't a lot of substance to the conversation outside of the fact that I asked for some specific things, and one of them being that he would denounce members of the party that were downplaying and denying the reality of January 6 — the reality of Donald Trump's involvement with January 6. And he wouldn't agree to do so," Fanone said.

He continued: "And even more so, he said that he couldn't control these fringe members of his party, which I thought was pretty shocking coming from somebody who calls himself Leader McCarthy, being the leader of the House GOP."

Fanone remarked that he felt a sense of "indifference" as he sought to get accountability for the attack, during which he was beaten unconscious and tased on his neck. He also suffered a mild heart attack and a traumatic brain injury.

"The fact that I sat there in a room, having been a victim of the violence that day sitting next to the mother of a dead police officer — that being Brian Sicknick — and seeing a person who chose his political future and what he thought would be best for his party rather than to show some level of compassion or empathy for the people that were sitting in front of him," Fanone said of McCarthy.

"To him, we were an inconvenience," he added.

Officer Sicknick, who was a member of the Capitol Police force, suffered two strokes and passed away on January 7, 2021. The Washington, DC, chief medical examiner ruled that he died of natural causes.


US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone, Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges and US Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn watch a video of rioters during the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC, on July 27, 2021.Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images
Since last year, Fanone has been critical of McCarthy's actions after January 6.

In May 2021, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California tweeted that Fanone had been "hung up on" by McCarthy's staff, a claim that the GOP congressman's office denied.

McCarthy at the time expressed interest in speaking with Fanone, whom he met with the following month, alongside Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn.

However, Fanone walked away feeling dissatisfied with the experience.

"I asked McCarthy to denounce the Republicans that voted against the Gold Medal bill that would recognize and honor my coworkers and colleagues that fought to secure the Capitol on January 6," Fanone told reporters at the Capitol at the time.

The then-officer also requested that McCarthy reject the comments of GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who argued that calling January 6 an insurrection was a "bald-faced lie."

When Fanone was asked at the time if McCarthy had agreed to his requests, he replied: "Not in my mind, no."

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Fanone lit into McCarthy, calling him a "weasel."

"I think at night, when the lights are turned off, Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan have some pretty choice words to say about the fact that they have to hang on Kevin McCarthy's wall," Fanone told the publication.

Insider reached out to McCarthy's office for comment.

Fanone's forthcoming book, "Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop's Battle for America's Soul," will be released on Tuesday.

Read the original article on Business Insider


https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-dc-metropolitan-police-department-155139795.html

 

Kevin McCarthy blew up at Trump for excusing rioters: 'They're trying to kill me!'

Travis Gettys
October 11, 2022



(Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)


House minority leader Kevin McCarthy reportedly blew up at Donald Trump when he excused his supporters for attacking the U.S. Capitol.

The California Republican had a fiery exchange with the former president on Jan. 6, 2021, but a new book, "The Enabler," by Robert Draper, adds new details to the public understanding of that phone call, according to excerpts published by Politico Playbook.

“Well, Kevin,” Trump told McCarthy just before 3 p.m., as rioters continued raging inside the Capitol, “I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”

McCarthy fired back, according to an account he gave later to a GOP colleague.

“More upset?” McCarthy said, according to that account. “THEY'RE TRYING TO F*CKING KILL ME!”

READ MORE: Trump's PAC spends big on paying his legal bills -- while leaving GOP candidates in the cold: report

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) later went public with details about that phone call, about which House impeachment mangers unsuccessfully tried to get her testimony during the Senate trial, and McCarthy later berated her so forcefully that she cried.

“After all the work I have done for the Republican Party, the money I have raised!” McCarthy shouted during a private meeting in his office, according to the book. “After all the work I have done for you! … I alone am taking all the heat to protect people from Trump! I alone am holding the party together! I have been working with Trump to keep him from going after Republicans like you and blowing up the party and destroying all our work! … You should have come to me! Why did you go to the press? This is no way to thank me!”

Herrera Beutler, who learned about the call when she approached him for advice about her vote on Trump's impeachment, and McCarthy told her the unvarnished truth about the former president's actions, knowing it would likely cause her to vote for his impeachment -- which she did.

“What did you want me to do? Lie?” Herrera Beutler told McCarthy after going public. “I did what I thought was right!”



https://www.rawstory.com/kevin-mccarthy-jan-6-2658424230/

 

This sounds like another really fun one. Its one thing to read about what a mentally ill, incompetent, lying, deadly president was but it has a lot more impact when you actually hear him being all those things.

Lordy There Are Tapes: Bob Woodward Releasing Audiobook with 8 HOURS of Trump Recordings
By Tommy ChristopherOct 18th, 2022, 11:25 am
1996 comments



L: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images R: L: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Legendary journalist and author Bob Woodward is releasing an audiobook that features recordings of more eight hours of interviews with former President Donald Trump — and CNN got an exclusive first listen.

New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman currently sits atop the publishing world with her controversial but much-buzzed-about book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.


But she could soon have some stiff competition, according to a new report from CNN’s Jamie Gangel, Elizabeth Stuart, and Jeremy Herb in the form of Woodward’s upcoming book The Trump Tapes:

Trump’s take on his relationship with Kim – and his admission that he didn’t have a broader strategy behind the threats he made about having a “much bigger” nuclear button – are part of a new audiobook that Woodward is releasing. Titled, “The Trump Tapes,” the book contains the 20 interviews Woodward conducted with Trump from 2016 through 2020.

CNN obtained a copy of the audiobook ahead of its October 25 release, which includes more than eight hours of the journalist’s raw interviews with Trump interspersed with Woodward’s commentary.

The interviews offer unvarnished insights into the former president’s worldview and are the most extensive recordings of Trump speaking about his presidency — including explaining his rationale for meeting Kim, his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s detailed views of the US nuclear arsenal. The audio also shows how Trump decided to share with Woodward the letters Kim wrote to him – the letters that helped spark the DOJ investigation into classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago.

Those letters are also the subject of heavy criticism that has been lobbed at Haberman by critics who claim she should have reported some of the more momentous scoops as they occurred, including those who falsely suggested Haberman committed a felony by failing to report on Trump’s possession of the Kim letters immediately.

The book is culled from interviews dating back to 2016, and as recently as 2020.


https://www.mediaite.com/news/lordy...g-audiobook-with-8-hours-of-trump-recordings/

 

Proven beyond reasonable doubt.

https://forum.xnxx.com/threads/trump-paving-the-road-to-dictatorship-prove-it.558313/


'For me it works out good': New audio uncovers Trump’s feelings about dictators

Meaghan Ellis, AlterNet
October 19, 2022



US court filings suggest aides of President Donald Trump sought support from the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin for an ambitious Moscow skyscraper project even while Trump was running for the White House in 2016 (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)


A new series of audio tapes shed light on former President Donald Trump's admiration of world leaders who lean toward authoritarianism.

In fact, one tape captures the former president admitting that he has a better rapport with world leaders that are "tougher and meaner."

According to HuffPost, the audio tapes are being released by longtime journalist Bob Woodward who conducted various interviews with Trump during his four-year presidency.

READ MORE: A 'dancing monkey': Lindsey Graham slammed for new audio that captures him kissing up to Trump

One tape also features a Trump interview that took place in Jan. 2020 where he shared his take on Russian President Vladamir Putin.

“I like Putin. Our relationship should be a very good one. I campaigned on getting along with Russia, China and everyone else,” Trump told Woodard, per the tapes obtained by CNN. “Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing, all right? Especially because they have 1,332 nuclear f--king warheads.”

He added, “It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them. You know? Explain that to me someday, okay. But maybe it’s not a bad thing. The easy ones are the ones I maybe don’t like as much or don’t get along with as much.”

Speaking about his relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Trump said, “I get along very well with Erdoğan, even though you’re not supposed to because everyone says what a horrible guy,” Trump said. “But you know for me it works out good.”

READ MORE: 'We are not joking around': January 6th Committee posts Oath Keepers’ walkie-talkie insurrection audio

As part of his new audiobook titled, “The Trump Tapes," Woodard is releasing recordings from 20 of his interviews with the former president from 2016 to 2020.

READ MORE: Cheney releases audio receipts after Trump-backed Wyoming GOP candidate claimed she didn't concede



https://www.rawstory.com/for-me-it-...ncovers-trumps-true-feelings-about-dictators/

 

Trump is king. Trump is God. Everything belongs to him.

Just too fucking funny. The only thing that belonged to Trump was his decision to sit down for the interviews or not. But once he agreed to the interviews everything that comes out of it belongs to the journalists.

Trump rages at ‘sleazy’ Bob Woodward over new audiobook: ‘The tapes belong to me’

Brad Reed
October 21, 2022



Bob Woodward and Donald Trump (Photos via screen capture and AFP)


Legendary Watergate reporter Bob Woodward recently announced that he would be releasing an audiobook filled with interviews he'd conducted with former President Donald Trump.

While speaking about this with Fox News' Brian Kilmeade on Friday, the twice-impeached former president fumed at Woodward and said he'd sue the reporter over the rights to the audio recordings he'd made of their conversations.

"In many ways I like the tapes, I insist on tapes, but I also say the tapes belong to me," Trump told Kilmeade. "That means Woodward has to get whatever deal he made, you know, we'll probably end up in litigation over it. Because we gave tapes for the written word, not tapes to sell."

After fuming more about Woodward, Trump told Kilmeade that "we've already hired the lawyers to sue him" and added that "Bob Woodward's a very sleazy guy."

RELATED: 'Stunning' ruling handed 'DOJ a roadmap' to prove Trump's attempt to defraud the government: legal analyst

Earlier in the conversation, Trump also referred to reporter Jonathan Karl as a "sleazebag."

Listen to the excerpt below or at this link.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-bob-woodward/

 

Listen to the audio of Bob Woodward's interviews with Trump that made him think of the former president as an 'unparalleled danger' rather than simply incompetent


Hannah Getahun
Sun, October 23, 2022 at 10:44 PM·2 min read




Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward and former President Donald Trump.William B. Plowman/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images and Anna Moneymaker-Pool/Getty Images

• 
  Bob Woodward said he changed his mind about Trump after re-listening to his own interviews.
  
• Woodward previously described the former president as the "wrong man" for the presidency.
  
• But "Trump is an unparalleled danger," Woodward wrote on Sunday in the Washington Post.
  

Ahead of the release of his never-before-heard audio interviews with former President Donald Trump, Watergate journalist Bob Woodward wrote that after listening to the unreleased tapes again, he concluded that Trump was an "unparalleled danger" rather than just the "wrong man" to be president.

"The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward's Twenty Interviews with President Trump," set to be released Oct. 25, is an audiobook of previously unreleased conversations between the veteran journalist and the businessman-turned-politician.

In an op-ed for the Washington Post released Sunday, which includes previously unreleased snippets of "The Trump Tapes," Woodward wrote that he had concluded his 2020 book on Trump by calling him "the wrong man for the job."

Woodward now says his assessment of Trump did not accurately describe the former president.

"Two years later, I realize I didn't go far enough. Trump is an unparalleled danger," Woodward wrote.

He continued: "When you listen to him on the range of issues from foreign policy to the virus to racial injustice, it's clear he did not know what to do. Trump was overwhelmed by the job. He was largely disconnected from the needs and leadership expectations of the public and his absolute self-focus became the presidency."


Ron Filipkowski

@RonFilipkowski
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Excerpt from the Woodward article, where Trump says why he knows better than the CIA about Kim Jong-un: “Chemistry. You meet somebody and you have good chemistry. You meet a woman - in one second you know whether or not it’s all gonna happen.” (Audio)













3:41 PM · Oct 23, 2022

Woodward explains in his piece for the Post that he decided to release the tapes to capture Trump's personality in a way that the written word couldn't. "Trump's voice magnifies his presence," Woodward said.

The tapes allow listeners to hear Trump repeatedly interrupting and at times mocking Woodward as they speak about the most pressing policy issues of his presidency, including his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which Woodward described as Trump's "greatest failure."

In clips of the Trump Tapes previously released by CNN, Trump can be heard talking about his admiration for strongmen leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean President Kim Jong Un. In another clip, Trump also bragged to Woodward that no other president was "tougher" than him when faced with impeachment.

A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/listen-audio-bob-woodwards-interviews-044417675.html

 

You're the only danger!

 

'He's drowning in himself: Bob Woodward releases full Trump tapes — and it's even worse than you might think

Heather Digby Parton, Salon
October 24, 2022



Donald Trump, White House photo by Tia Dufour


Venerable reporter Bob Woodward has produced a new audiobook called "The Trump Tapes," which contains the 20 interviews he conducted with Donald Trump in the course of reporting and writing his three books about the ex-president's administration, "Fear," "Rage" and "Peril" (the last with Robert Costa). Woodward has never released full interviews or raw transcripts before, but decided to do it this time because Trump's words don't come across the same way in print. I think that's true. I've read a number of Trump books over the past five years and I'm always struck by the fact that he doesn't seem quite on the page as he does on video, even when the authors are quoting him saying something we've all seen or heard.

(Of course Trump now says the tapes actually belong to him and claims he's already hired lawyers to sue Woodward, whom he describes as a very sleazy guy. One would expect nothing less.)

Woodward shared some of the audio in a piece for the Washington Post over the weekend in advance of the audiobook's release this week. One of its most interesting aspects is the extent to which Woodward himself was clearly appalled by the man he was interviewing. That's been pretty clear in the previously published books and interviews but it really comes through in this piece. This is a reporter who's interviewed every president of the last 50 years and many other powerful officials, and he sounds ... spooked.

Some of the exchanges in the article are familiar ground but always worth revisiting since Trump is clearly close to announcing that he's running again in 2024. (At a rally in Texas over the weekend he said, "I will probably have to do it again.") Woodward provides one of the discussions about Trump's relationship with Kim Jong-un, which the then-president considered beyond special:

Woodward: The CIA says about Kim Jong Un that he's "cunning, crafty but ultimately stupid."
Trump: I disagree. He's cunning. He's crafty. And he's very smart. You know.
Woodward: Why does the CIA say that?
Trump: Because they don't know. Okay? Because they don't know. They have no idea. I'm the only one that knows. I'm the only one he deals with. He won't deal with anybody else …The word chemistry. You meet somebody and you have a good chemistry. You meet a woman. In one second you know whether or not it's all going to happen...



Woodward: And is this all designed to drive Kim to the negotiating table?

Trump: No. No. It was designed for whatever reason, it was designed. Who knows? Instinctively. Let's talk instinct.


Woodward: Do you get a sense he's wooing you?

Trump: No, I get —

Woodward: Or building a relationship of trust?

Trump: — a sense — I get a sense he likes me. I think he likes me. Okay, so, you know he's got a great piece of land. He's in between Russia, China and South Korea. In the real estate business we'd say, "Great location." You understand?



Listening to him say such idiotic things in the intimacy of private conversations is even more unnerving than watching him do it in front of a crowd. Woodward writes:

Trump's voice is a concussive instrument. Fast and loud. He hits hard and will lower his volume to underscore for effect. He is staggeringly incautious and repetitive, as if saying something often and loud enough will make it true.


When asked if he'd given Kim too much power and what he would do if the North Korean leader shot off one of his ICBMs, Trump responded, "doesn't matter... let me tell you, whether I gave it to him or not, if he shoots he shoots." He literally cared about nothing but this supposed personal relationship, which seemed largely to exist in his own head, and just shrugs off the prospect of a nuclear strike by a rogue nation. It's deeply bizarre.

Woodward was perhaps most upset by Trump's attitude toward the pandemic, which sounds even more dreadful than it did in real time. Woodward asks at one point if Trump thinks the crisis — in which the entire world economy was shut down and thousands were dying every day — was "the leadership test of a lifetime" and Trump barks out "No!" It is an exceedingly weird response. He consistently tells Woodward that everything is going great, while clearly failing to grasp the gravity of the situation.

Woodward says he believes that "the tapes show that Trump's greatest failure was his handling of the coronavirus, which as of October 2022 has killed more than 1 million Americans." There is no doubt of that in my mind either. I continue to be amazed that it seems to be forgotten among Trump's many crimes, scandals and misdeeds.



There are a number of committees and commissions charged with looking at the COVID crisis but they mostly seem concerned with where all the money went, which is important. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis has released a number of reports on the Trump administration's failures, to very little fanfare. Just last week, for example:

A committee report last summer laid out evidence of the administration's similar pressure on the FDA. But so far there has been almost no media attention on how poorly Trump and his administration handled that terrifying first year.

That level of malfeasance, which had such terrible consequences for millions of people, should not be allowed to disappear down the memory hole. Perhaps Woodward's new book and the attendant publicity, given his personal focus on the issue, can put it back on the agenda.

When Woodward appeared on "CBS Sunday Morning," he told host John Dickerson:

Trump was the wrong man for the job. But I realize now, two years later, all the Jan. 6 insurrection, leads me to the conclusion that he's not just the wrong man for the job, he's dangerous. He is a threat to democracy and he's a threat to the presidency, because he doesn't understand the core obligations that come with that office.
Unfortunately, Trump is the clear frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination and could be back in the White House in a little over two years. The recording of Trump saying the following says it all:

Trump: ... I get people. They come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. The ideas are mine.

Woodward: And then?
Trump: Want to know something? Everything is mine.
Woodward told Dickerson, "When you hear this voice and the way he assesses situations and himself, he's drowning in himself." Yes, he is — and he's taking the country down with him.




https://www.rawstory.com/he-s-drown...ews-and-it-s-even-worse-than-you-might-think/

 

It still enrages me that some of the best mental health experts in the country started sounding the alarm on Trump's FORMS of mental illness right after he took office. They diagnosed and documented them. And even wrote a book explaining why Trump's FORMS of mental illness made him the most dangerous man in the world. But among those warnings were also guides to see Trump's mental illness for ourselves. and one of them was Dr Lance Dodes who pointed out normal people lie to try and gain some kind of advantage. But Trump not only lies all the time his lies are often destructive and dangerous to him. And yet he can't stop and that is how we know we are dealing with psychosis.

But Dodes also said Trump's FORMS of mental illness were also on clear display just listening to him talk. In fact Dr Dodes said it was a mistake to just listen to Trump talk and the media was doing a great disservice to the nation by covering Trump without not providing an actual transcript to go with it. Dr Dodes noted Trump is a master of misdirection and rhetorical stage craft. And the press wold take little snippets of what Trump said and try to make sense of that. While anyone else listening can hear whatever they want because Trump also constantly contradict its himself. But if someone reads the actual transcripts of what Trump says he is actually just babbling incoherent nonsense. And that is starting to come through with Woodward's audio book. Because now even Woodward had no idea how mentally unfit Trump was to be president until he went back and started listening to the tapes again.




Woodward interviews reveal Trump's brain is a 'hot diaper mess': reporter

Brad Reed
October 25, 2022



Gage Skidmore.


Journalist Bob Woodward is releasing hours worth of interviews with Donald Trump and Politico's Jack Shafer argues that they show interviewing the former president is an exercise in futility.

Shafer begins by noting Woodward's well earned reputation as a meticulous interviewer, although he says those skills may be wasted on a subject like Trump, who simply does not engage with contrary facts presented to him.

"The interview is a hot diaper mess that mainly illustrates Trump’s narcissism and willful ignorance," Shafer writes. "He doesn’t really know anything, which is forgivable. But he also doesn’t want to know anything, which isn’t."

The journalist then goes through multiple excerpts of Woodward's interview with Trump, including sections about his administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, his attempts to shake down the Ukrainian government for dirt on Joe Biden, and his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

READ MORE: Adidas dumps Kanye West partnership after multiple anti-Semitic tirades: report
4
In each case, notes Shafer, Trump will not give straight answers to simple questions and will instead turn the question into an opportunity to boast of his personal greatness.

"Trump interviews have been and will always be futile exercises in attempting to nail a blob of mercury because that’s the way he flows," he concludes. "If Doorstop Bob Woodward can’t wring a coherent interrogation out of somebody after 20 interviews of 600 questions, nobody can.




https://www.rawstory.com/bob-woodward-trump-2658501049/

 

Trump was not only more mentally ill than Kim Jong un he was also more stupid and ignorant which are two different things. Of course the CIA had mental and psychological profile on Kim, And most certainly North Korea had the same on Trump. But Kim was at least smart enough to listen to his intelligence community and knew exactly how to play Trump like a fiddle. No matter how dumb Kim is he knew all he had to do was flatter Trump and tell him how great and intelligent he is and Trump would do anything he wanted. And so Trump stages photo ops, gushes over Kim and their great relationship while Kim forges ahead with his nuclear and missile programs while Trump is busy kissing his ass.


Bob Woodward: Trump told me something 'I've never heard' from any of the 10 presidents I've covered




Brad Reed

October 25, 2022












President Donald Trump and Bob Woodward


Legendary Watergate reporter Bob Woodward told CNN on Tuesday that he came away stunned by the approach former President Donald Trump took to governing, which he said was unique among the ten American presidents he's covered during his decades-long career.

While talking with hosts John Berman and Brianna Keilar about his new audio book of Trump interviews, Woodward said Trump relied on personal instinct more than any other president he's encountered, while also being completely dismissive of expert opinion that countered his ideas.

One particularly striking example of this, Woodward said, came in Trump's admiration for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

"On Kim Jong-un, the CIA says he is stupid, Trump says, 'Oh, no, he's smart,' and then Trump says... 'Only I know,'" Woodward explained. "I've never heard... any of the ten presidents I've reported on ever approaching the point. Now, maybe they thought sometimes only they knew. But to say that... that is the message, that this is all about him, on the strategy of dealing with North Korea."

IN OTHER NEWS: Jan. 6 Committee hands over 'key evidence' that could undermine Trump's defense against criminal charges: report

Woodward also said that Trump's narcissism was evident throughout his lengthy interviews.

"My assistant, Claire McMullen, has listened to these tapes many, many times," Woodward said. "And she found one time Trump referred to the American people, 100 times he referred to himself, what he knows."

Watch the video below or at this link.



https://www.rawstory.com/bob-woodward-trump-2658501764/

 

Here again what we are really looking at is Trump's FORMS of mental illness. As the mental health experts that wrote the book on The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump documented Trump can only exist in his own little delusional reality where he is always the greatest, the smartest, the toughest, infallible, and invincible. He cannot grasp the consequences of his own actions and can only feel himself.

And take special note of just how far detached from reality Trump really is. No one has done more to divide the country than Trump has. And when Woodward challenges him on a president is supposed to being the country together he offers calling the other side "haters" as proof he's trying to unite the country.


Trump cited infamous tweet to Bob Woodward as proof he wanted to unite the country

Travis Gettys
October 26, 2022



Bob Woodward (MSNBC)


Donald Trump left office as the most unpopular president since modern polling began, but he expressed some sense of regret in an interview with Bob Woodward.

The Washington Post journalist released hours of recordings he made with the former president, who conceded that many Americans didn't like him, and he cited his infamously habitual holiday greetings as proof that he could bridge that divide.

"You know, we have two Americas out there, you realize that?" Woodward says in one recording, and Trump agrees. "You are president of two Americas, they are divided. Is it, in the end, not your job to be able to bring them together? Isn't your job, job one, bring them back together?"

Trump agreed, but told Woodward there was no easy way for him to do that, as he learned by tweeting out season's greetings.


"I think the biggest problem I have for doing that -- I would love to do that, because I've oftentimes said that -- you remember when I put out the Christmas greeting where I said, 'Merry Christmas to all, even the haters?' You know, but i would love to be able to do it, but the biggest problem is the media."

Trump wished happy Easter, New Year and even 9/11 to his followers, including the haters, before his account was permanently suspended following the Jan. 6 insurrection, and longtime acquaintance Rev. Al Sharpton told Woodward that exchange illustrated how little he understood about relating to other people.

"I've known Donald Trump for 40 years, mostly adversarial, but in listening to this last part of the tape you play, I always sensed even though those of us that opposed him, marched on him and all, he really wanted everybody to like him," Sharpton said. "Did you get the sense that part of his weakness was that he really even engaging you wanted people to like him, despite the fact he was doing the most adversarial and sometimes most outrageous things, and that he lived in his own world. I think he had his own reality that did not in any way, in my opinion blend in with the reality of whatever the given social or political landscape was at the time."

Watch video below or at this link.



https://www.rawstory.com/911-trump-even-the-haters-and-losers/

 

They twirl and shout in their desperation as mid terms approach.

But we all know, its the economy, stupid and thanks to Biden the wave approaches

 

Woodward: Trump 'traumatized' his national security team

Matthew Chapman
October 24, 2022



MSNBC


On CNN Monday, Watergate reporter Bob Woodward outlined how former President Donald Trump's relationship with North Korean despot Kim Jong-un "traumatized" his own national security officials.

This came amid the release of tapes of Woodward's conversations with Trump, during which he dismissed the CIA's claims Kim was "stupid" and that he knew better because the two of them have great "chemistry."

"So, you're saying this about Kim Jong-un and you have this chemistry and the purpose is what?" said anchor Jake Tapper. "And he says it was designed for whatever reason. It was designed, who knows, instinctively. Let's talk instinct. There's no substance there at all."

"And here he's saying his decision is instinct," said Woodward. "I mean, what a casual way, as I point out in one of my 200 commentaries in the audiobook, this traumatized his national security team. Kim Jong-un, the thuggish leader of North Korea, had nuclear weapons. He had missiles that he got from — missile launchers from China. And then he concealed them and he hid them in a way that the CIA was, my god, this guy, if we ever have to have a war or some sort of nuclear exchange with him, he's really advanced. And the defense secretary, Mattis, used to sleep in his gym clothes because he knew if a missile was coming to the United States, he would be called to an emergency conference."

"I asked Trump about this," Woodward continued. "Trump had given the authority to Mattis to shoot down an incoming missile like that. Mattis was going to the national cathedral to pray, to make peace with his god, that as defense secretary, he might have to use nuclear weapons to defend our country. And this, the president's presentation on this is, well, it's instinct. Who knows? I mean, come on."

"I am increasingly baffled the more I hear the casual disconnect, the sense he has of obligation to himself, I guess, I mean, about Kim Jong-un," added Woodward. "'I'm the only one that knows.' I mean, come on. I've never heard — I've interviewed lots of presidents and people that work with them and got notes and transcripts of meetings in the White House — never heard another president say anything like that. Lots of big egos in the presidency. Never heard one say, I'm the only one that knows."

Watch below:



https://www.rawstory.com/woodward-trump/