Bob Woodward’s new audiobook casts former President Trump in yet another new light
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Managing Editor
So many people have written books on or about former President Donald Trump. That includes countless journalists, and even members of his own family. Bob Woodward has written three about his presidency alone.
What Woodward has never done before in his entire lengthy career is release the tapes he recorded of his interviews of any subject he spoke to. For the first time, we’re hearing the Trump presidency at its most candid directly from the former president himself.
“The Trump Tapes” is not an easy listen. Recorded mostly for the 2020 tell-all book “RAGE” (the contents of which were arguably a key factor in Trump’s failed re-election bid), the former president does most of the talking for over 11 hours of audio. Trump drones on and on and on about certain subjects repeatedly throughout multiple interviews, using that often hateful (and sometimes untrue) rhetoric to attempt to deflect Woodward’s more serious questions about his relations with North Korea, his thoughts on racial injustice and white privilege, the COVID-19 pandemic and tons of other hot-button issues.
But as Woodward says in the audiobook’s description: “Hearing Trump speak is a completely different experience to reading the transcripts or listening to snatches of interviews on television or the internet.”
Perhaps more than any other tell-all book or memorable television appearance, “The Trump Tapes” reveal the inner workings of the man. There is no staff to hide behind (despite some of them making appearances on the recordings) and no other human beings in the world to impress. More than anything before it, the tapes paint the most clear picture of the self-proclaimed billionaire to date.
“The presidency is mine,” Woodward recounts Trump once saying. “It is still mine. Everything that matters is mine.” The longtime Washington Post editor later says, “Trump does not believe in democracy. That is my central conclusion.”
Throughout the tapes, Trump desperately seeks validation and credit for some things he did, and many things he didn’t. The mere mention of former President Obama often sends him on a tangent no matter what the context is. He has a dire need to feel superior and all-knowing, even as it’s abundantly clear that he’s out of his depth with each passing tape. None of this information approaches the level of an earth-shattering revelation, but hearing Trump unfiltered truly amplifies his eccentricities.
Just like Trump was no ordinary president, Bob Woodward is no ordinary journalist. He is perhaps the most important journalistic figure in history (Carl Bernstein is not far behind him), and while he entertains Trump’s soliloquies, he does not fall for his charm. The fact that Trump thought that he could charm the journalist that took down President Nixon speaks to the arrogance he displays throughout the tapes, although it has to be noted that he treats Woodward with great respect and even admiration throughout all of the interviews.
Even Woodward himself says, “It is still somewhat of a puzzle to me why he talked to me, and at such length. I think he honestly believed that he could talk me into telling the story of his presidency as he would like it to be seen and remembered in history.”
Throughout the tapes, Woodward himself (on an audiobook for perhaps the first time ever) breaks from the interviews to fact check Trump and correct any misinformation that he spews. But it’s worth noting that while Woodward is just as big of a star as Trump is on these tapes. Quite frequently, he challenges Trump’s rhetoric and misinformation to his face in a way that few have. At times during the interviews, Woodward comes off more as an adviser to Trump than an interviewer. This is especially true when it comes to conversations about COVID-19; Trump asks Woodward what he should do, and Woodward outlines a detailed plan on the spot. It’s a fruitless effort, but it’s refreshing to hear the former Commander-In-Chief be confronted with actual, indisputable facts from the one journalist he may actually respect.
“The Trump Tapes” may not be anything that the critics of the former president didn’t already expect. However, they are a rather detailed portrait of the inner workings of the man’s mind, and it’s all straight from the source.
