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Woodward's new Trump book "Rage" (1 Viewer)

Workhorse

Footballguy
In which, Trump admits that he intentionally downplayed the dangers of COVID-19, Woodward quotes former administration officials characterizing the President as "dangerous and unfit,""has no moral compass,"  "rudderless" and that his "attention span is like a minus number." Also, the shocking revelation that Dan Coats still believes that Putin has something on Trump, even though there is no intelligence information to prove it.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html

 
I honestly think Trump would be a slight favorite for reelection if he had taken covid seriously from the get-go.  I know this is a morbid way of putting it, but this pandemic was a gift handed to Trump on a silver platter, and he screwed it up.  

Of course, screwing up the easy stuff is kind of Trump's MO so none of this should really be surprising.

 
I honestly think Trump would be a slight favorite for reelection if he had taken covid seriously from the get-go.  I know this is a morbid way of putting it, but this pandemic was a gift handed to Trump on a silver platter, and he screwed it up.  

Of course, screwing up the easy stuff is kind of Trump's MO so none of this should really be surprising.
there’s no doubt.  Most of us could write a speech in 15 minutes that would have guaranteed him re-election if he’d have given it back in early March.

 
What did he know and when did he know it?

“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.

At that time, Trump was telling the nation that the virus was no worse than a seasonal flu, predicting it would soon disappear, and insisting that the U.S. government had it totally under control. It would be several weeks before he would publicly acknowledge that the virus was no ordinary flu and that it could be transmitted through the air.

Trump admitted to Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger. “I wanted to always play it down,” the president said.

 
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I honestly think Trump would be a slight favorite for reelection if he had taken covid seriously from the get-go. 
That's a good point - between the "enemy" of China and the virus, he could have rallied the masses.  But ...no.  With a U.S. death toll about to rise above 200,000 an likely to reach 250,000 by the election, he has nowhere to hide.

 
Also, the shocking revelation that Dan Coats still believes that Putin has something on Trump, even though there is no intelligence information to prove it.
The fact that he won't say boo about Navalny's obvious Putin driven poisoning tells you all you ever needed to know. 

 
Btw, Trump has to be livid this is coming out just a few hours after his Nobel Prize nomination.  He had stuff all over twitter about that.

 
Preordered the audiobook.  Cant wait as I loved FEAR.  I actually learned a lot about the White House, how the staff works, how the process works, etc.

 
Btw, Trump has to be livid this is coming out just a few hours after his Nobel Prize nomination.  He had stuff all over twitter about that.
This is on Nobel Prize official site

Neither the names of nominators nor of nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize may be divulged until 50 years have elapsed.

 
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Btw, Trump has to be livid this is coming out just a few hours after his Nobel Prize nomination.  He had stuff all over twitter about that.
People do not that just about anyone can be "nominated" for the Nobel Peace prize - right?

There are currently 318 nominees for the 2020 award.

And, this is not the first time Trump has been nominated.

But, it really does look like the whole Israel - UAE deal is made up to get Trump his nomination...

 
Shame on WAPO and Woodward if this is true. Are they concerned with how dangerous COVID is or just another daily accusation against Trump, since the story on the fallen soldiers last week didn’t seem to hold any water, or just trying to sell a book. I have no problem with them reporting verifiable truths.

 
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Shame on WAPO and Woodward if this is true. Are they concerned with how dangerous COVID is or just another daily accusation against Trump, since the story on the fallen soldiers last week didn’t seem to hold any water, or just trying to sell a book. I have no problem with them reporting verifiable truths.
I love this suggestion/expectation is that the media is supposed to save us from the dangers of a pandemic vs..... you know.... THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

 
I love this suggestion/expectation is that the media is supposed to save us from the dangers of a pandemic vs..... you know.... THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Why do they release this six months later?

isn’t the press trying to protect the US and the world from Trump every day?

 
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Who cut off travel from China first?  I think we have to see if this is even an accurate report.
Oh, ok.

Who let all the people in from China - after the "travel ban"?

Who let all the people in from Covid-stricken Europe?

Who, to this day, refuses to take ti seriously by wearing a mask, and encouraging others to do so also?

Who is blaming Woodward for not disclosing that Trump knew it was serious, and still did nothing?

 
Click the CNN link to the story. The audio is embedded, with text that follows.
Thanks!  I listened to it and don’t see any there there. He didn’t not do anything about it. In fact Gov Cuomo was rather thankful for helping  NY out.   
Weren’t we getting mixed messages from WHO? US offered to send officials to China and they denied it. 

 
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Donald Trump on tape with Bob Woodward: “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don't want to cause a panic."

vs.

Kayleigh McEnany on TV just now: “The president never downplayed the virus.”

 
Thanks!  I listened to it and don’t see any there there. He didn’t not do anything about it. In fact Gov Cuomo was rather thankful for helping  NY out.   
He did some things. I don't think people mean he did absolutely nothing. It's just the token stuff that he did was not nearly enough

 
The pushback is "didn't we all basically 'know' this already"? He's obviously been downplaying the virus since the beginning. Is the point that he absolutely knew it was a serious threat in January? It seems like that was "well-known" too. Will tapes in his own words make that much of a difference, or will this be largely blown over? 

 
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The pushback is "didn't we all basically 'know' this already"? He's obviously been downplaying the virus since the beginning. Is the point that he absolutely knew it was a serious threat in January? It seems like that was "well-known" too. Will tapes in his own words make that much of a difference, or will this be largely blown over? 
My guess is that this information is already priced into everyone's assessment of Trump.  Nothing in this report is at all surprising to me, for example, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

 
He did some things. I don't think people mean he did absolutely nothing. It's just the token stuff that he did was not nearly enough
Companies being told they had to make ventilators/POE may not agree they were token actions but it probably is subjective.the democrats were accusing Trump of being racist for shutting the travel from China.

 
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My guess is that this information is already priced into everyone's assessment of Trump.  Nothing in this report is at all surprising to me, for example, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
There's still a lot of people who don't pay attention to anything until after Labor Day. We pay 10000% more attention to stuff then a lot of folks.

 
Well besides play down the risks.  
This is President Trump on tape, on February 7, saying that the coronavirus is "more deadly than your – you know, your, even your strenuous flus."

But he minimized the threat in public. On February 26, he told the public "I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away."

Imagine how seriously the public would have taken this, and done what was necessary to limit the spread - if Trump, very seriously outlined the threats, and suggested we can overcome those threats by taking certain actions.

 
There's still a lot of people who don't pay attention to anything until after Labor Day. We pay 10000% more attention to stuff then a lot of folks.
That's true.  When I said "everyone" what I really meant to say was "everyone who pays attention to this sort of stuff."  

 
This is President Trump on tape, on February 7, saying that the coronavirus is "more deadly than your – you know, your, even your strenuous flus."

But he minimized the threat in public. On February 26, he told the public "I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away."

Imagine how seriously the public would have taken this, and done what was necessary to limit the spread - if Trump, very seriously outlined the threats, and suggested we can overcome those threats by taking certain actions.
Exactly. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that, in my area of the country, if he had been forthright early on we wouldn't have and (and frankly still continue to have <_< ) that incredible amount of push back on things like masks.  He pretty much set this up as a "red team/blue team" thing right away and at least around here people behaved and continue to behave accordingly.

This isn't a "an asteroid is coming and I don't want anarchy" kind of thing.  This was him protecting his stock market.  He cost a lot of lives.

 
This is President Trump on tape, on February 7, saying that the coronavirus is "more deadly than your – you know, your, even your strenuous flus."

But he minimized the threat in public. On February 26, he told the public "I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away."

Imagine how seriously the public would have taken this, and done what was necessary to limit the spread - if Trump, very seriously outlined the threats, and suggested we can overcome those threats by taking certain actions.
The Governors were very clear they will control their states. Feds stay out. They held the daily briefings with Birx nd Fauci with updated stats, learnings thoughts on how to control. Yes, those were constantly changing messages and Trump agreed and disagreed with Fauci. 

 
Exactly. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that, in my area of the country, if he had been forthright early on we wouldn't have and (and frankly still continue to have <_< ) that incredible amount of push back on things like masks.  He pretty much set this up as a "red team/blue team" thing right away and at least around here people behaved and continue to behave accordingly.

This isn't a "an asteroid is coming and I don't want anarchy" kind of thing.  This was him protecting his stock market.  He cost a lot of lives.
You don’t think both sides didn’t politicize this?

 
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My guess is that this information is already priced into everyone's assessment of Trump.  Nothing in this report is at all surprising to me, for example, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
I know this will show how dumb I am, but having the President call his "####### generals" a "bunch of #######" still surprised me.

 
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You don’t think both sides didn’t politicize this?
Even if I were to grant your point about politicizing (though through a deeper discussion I would disagree)....not to the degree of this President, at such a critical early time, and the amount of damage he did and continues to do by his actions and in-actions.  My area is a fustercluck almost directly because of his politicizing.

 
And - just for good measure - if you were willing to give Trump a pass on downplaying the covid threat, the thing that should really give you pause, he wasn't smart enough to keep that to himself when talking to Bob Woodward, who was recording the conversation.

 
You don’t think both sides didn’t politicize this?
There was nothing political about this until one side decided not to listen to consensus health and science experts. The fact that one "side" had significantly higher mask use should tell you everything you need to know. 

If you mean one side politicized this by saying they should listen to the experts and not politicians on this, then yeah, both sides politicized this. 

 
I know this will show how dumb I am, but having the President call his "####### generals" a "bunch of #######" still surprised me.
Meh - it seems like forever ago that he said he was smarter than the Generals.  He has always held people in positions of power with disdain.

 
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Even if I were to grant your point about politicizing (though through a deeper discussion I would disagree)....not to the degree of this President, at such a critical early time, and the amount of damage he did and continues to do by his actions and in-actions.  My area is a fustercluck almost directly because of his politicizing.
All I know is we pretty much stayed locked down for 5 plus months and still quite locked down. We want to minimize risk still and continue to wear masks in public. Hopefully we will have a safe vaccine soon.

 
There was nothing political about this until one side decided not to listen to consensus health and science experts. The fact that one "side" had significantly higher mask use should tell you everything you need to know. 

If you mean one side politicized this by saying they should listen to the experts and not politicians on this, then yeah, both sides politicized this. 
Was this before or after masks were roundly criticized as useless against the virus by our top medical experts during the height of panic?

Right or wrong, some people took that line and went about their lives. The minute they walked that back and started mandating their use is where the division and confusion started on this topic. Not on political lines. (It became political in the months to follow, for sure)

 
And - just for good measure - if you were willing to give Trump a pass on downplaying the covid threat, the thing that should really give you pause, he wasn't smart enough to keep that to himself when talking to Bob Woodward, who was recording the conversation.
The reason for this is he wants a new narrative "I did this for your own good.  If I hadnt, there would have been panic and 10x more deaths.  Thats what some people are saying"

 
And - just for good measure - if you were willing to give Trump a pass on downplaying the covid threat, the thing that should really give you pause, he wasn't smart enough to keep that to himself when talking to Bob Woodward, who was recording the conversation.
Totally agree with you on that. Don’t take my comments here to suggest I think he is a great guy.

 
The pushback is "didn't we all basically 'know' this already"? He's obviously been downplaying the virus since the beginning. Is the point that he absolutely knew it was a serious threat in January? It seems like that was "well-known" too. Will tapes in his own words make that much of a difference, or will this be largely blown over? 
We may have always thought he was downplaying it but there was always the possibility that he didn’t understand how bad it was or didn’t believe it was bad or maybe top officials were hiding the information like they do with anything with Russia. Now we know he absolutely knew how bad it was and still acted the way he did.

Personally I thought he was willfully ignorant about it, choosing not to understand how bad it was because he didn’t want to believe it. Like a child sticking his fingers in his ears to avoid hearing warnings from the adults to later claim they never told him. Now we know that he heard and understood how serious it was but downplayed it anyway. It continues to amaze me that anyone can trust him to handle the next crisis.

 

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