Trump, aides hit out at Watergate reporter’s book
WASHINGTON : President Donald Trump, the White House and his past and current aides have hit back in coordination against explosive details about his presidency in an upcoming book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward.
The president called the book, Fear: Trump in the White House, “bad” in an interview to The Daily Caller, a conservative publication, and alleged Woodward has a credibility problem, something entirely contrary to what he said in a phone conversation with Woodward that the Washington Post released on Tuesday.
White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said in a statement: “This book is nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the president look bad.”
She detailed some of the Trump administration’s achievements.
Chief of staff John Kelly said in the same statement, “The idea I ever called the President an idiot is not true…He always knows where I stand, and he and I both know this story is total BS.”
A former counsel to Trump disputed details about his dealings with the president related to the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Woodward’s book draws a picture of the Trump White House not radically dissimilar from previous accounts in Michael Wolfe’s Fire And Fury and Omarosa Manigault Newman’s Unhinged, but without the claims and allegations in those two books that turned out be unsubstantiated and, in some instances, fiction.
Trump has been irritated that he was not interviewed for the book, and the Washington Post released on Tuesday a transcript of his phone call to Woodward to complain about it. But when he was told Woodward tried several times to contact him through Kellyanne Conway, a White House aide, and senator Lindsey Graham, Trump backed off.
Woodward also tried the White House press office and said he had put in a request with deputy press secretary Raj Shah.
Trump said he never speaks to Shah: “If you would’ve called directly— a lot of people are afraid . . . Raj, I hardly have . . . I don’t speak to Raj.”
Shah, the first Indian-American to be named deputy press secretary at the White House, is tasked with shepherding judge Brett Kavanaugh’ confirmation to the Supreme Court.