Bob Woodward Quotes

A heartfelt thanks to Evelyn M. Duffy, my assistant on five books that have covered four presidents. President Trump presents a particular hurdle because of the deep emotions and passions he brings out in supporters and critics. Evelyn immediately grasped that the challenge was to get new information, authenticate it and put it in context while reporting as deeply as possible inside the White House.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who was a commander in the Naval Reserves, tried several times to persuade Mattis to appear on Sunday talk shows on behalf of the administration. The answer was always no. “Sean,” Mattis finally said, “I’ve killed people for a living. If you call me again, I’m going to fucking send you to Afghanistan. Are we clear?

Ryan’s main takeaway: Do not humiliate Trump in public. Humiliating a narcissist risked real danger, a frantic lashing out if he felt threatened or criticized.

The president has zero psychological ability to recognize

In another discussion with the president, Cohn unveiled a Commerce Department study showing the U.S. absolutely needed to trade with China. “If you’re the Chinese and you want to really just destroy us, just stop sending us antibiotics. You know we don’t really produce antibiotics in the United States?” The study also showed that nine major antibiotics were not produced in the United States, including penicillin. China sold 96.6 percent of all antibiotics used here. “We don’t produce penicillin.” Trump looked at Cohn strangely. “Sir, so when mothers’ babies are dying of strep throat, what are you going to say to them?” Cohn asked Trump if he would tell them, “Trade deficits matter”? “We’ll buy it from another country,” Trump proposed. “So now the Chinese are going to sell it [antibiotics] to the Germans, and the Germans are going to mark it up and sell it to us. So our trade deficit will go down with the Chinese, up with the Germans.” U.S. consumers would be paying a markup. “Is that good for our economy?” Navarro said they would buy it through some country other than Germany. Same problem, Cohn said. “You’re just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

It would be absurd for me or any other editor to review the authenticity or accuracy of stories that are nominated for prizes.

Kelly said of the president, “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown. “I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.

It’s not what we did for the country,” Cohn said. “It’s what we saved him from doing.

Members of his staff had joined to purposefully block some of what they believed were the president’s most dangerous impulses. It was a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.

Cohn had witnessed this for over a year — denial when needed or useful or more convenient. “He’s a professional liar,” Cohn told an associate.

In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy.

Tillerson said, and the floodgates gushed open. “The president can’t make a decision. He doesn’t know how to make a decision.

This degradation of the American experiment is real. This is tangible. Truth is no longer governing the White House statements. Nobody believes — even the people who believe in him somehow believe in him without believing what he says.

If so, our posture would be as follows: we published the story and said it was true, but now we are going to nominate it for a Pulitzer — now that's serious business.

All good work is done in defiance of management.