Bob Woodward at his Washington residence Xavier Dussaq
Last summer, with Donald Trump's first term half a year to go, legendary reporter Bob Woodward (Geneva, Illinois, age 77) believed that "anything," at least "almost anything," could still happen in the Republican presidency.
This is the conclusion he reached in his latest book,
Rage
(in Spanish,
Rabia
, edited by Roca), the second volume on the Trump era.
But he also made this opinion:
“Trump has spoken very harshly, at times, in a way that makes his own supporters uncomfortable.
But he has not imposed martial law or suspended the Constitution, despite the predictions of his opponents.
He and his attorney general, William Barr, have challenged the traditional rule of law several times.
Unnecessarily, in my opinion.
Using the judicial system to favor friends and punish enemies is mean and Nikonian.
The constitutional system may have seemed shaky at times, which could change overnight.
Still, democracy has held out.
Leadership has failed. "
What will the famous hound think now?
One week after the violent assault on Congress by a Trumpist mob;
one day after passing a new political trial (
impeachment
) against the president for "incitement to insurrection";
almost three months after a tough campaign of hoaxes about an alleged electoral fraud to try to reverse the victory of Democrat Joe Biden ... Does Woodward believe that the system resists?
This Thursday morning, on the other end of the phone, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner thinks about it a bit.
It's a great question.
I think I reaffirm myself in what I wrote.
Democracy in the United States has held out, although it has been shaken.
The failure has been Trump, he failed to understand the responsibility of his presidency, he failed to lead, ”he tells EL PAÍS.
Woodward, who rose to fame at a very young age after uncovering the Watergate case with Carl Bernstein, a scandal that cost President Richard Nixon his job in 1974, is one of the great chroniclers of US presidencies of the last half century.
In the first book on Trump (
Fear
), he failed to interview the Republican.
For the second, he held about twenty conversations with Trump - and dozens of collaborators - throughout 2020 for a total of nine hours.
In the book, he draws a feverish and erratic government, similar to his Twitter account, and does not draw very different conclusions from what happened last week in Washington.
“Trump acts controlled by his own impulses, he does not plan, he does not think things, in a very alarming way he has failed to protect the people of this country, both from the virus and the violence that occurred last week when the Capitol was attacked by his followers, "he says.
Despite the fact that justice has dropped all the lawsuits presented by the Trump campaign and the electoral authorities have attested to the rigor of the elections, more than half of Republican voters continue to think that Biden won fraudulently.
The media appear to have failed to combat hoaxes.
For Woodward, the media are living in an era in which "impatience, speed and summary" dominate everything and Trump "is something very difficult to cover, because journalists need to deal with facts" and Trump is "a specialist in saying things that are not true ”.
However, it distances itself from the suspension of the broadcast of the president's press conferences, a measure that one day the conservative chain Fox also took, when it launched its string of unfounded fraud accusations.
The first amendment
“I think we should let people say what they want to say, including presidents, the problem is the Internet and social media, which is driven by impatience and speed and I think we should slow that down, that's why I spend my time writing books, "he says.
He is also skeptical, even so, about the decisions made in recent days by the powerful bosses of big technology, who have closed Trump's Facebook or Twitter accounts, as well as those of thousands of his ultras followers: “I have been journalist for 50 years and I believe in the First Amendment, which allows freedom of speech.
Many people say false or outrageous things, it is very difficult to establish a standard.
I believe that the market for ideas and expressions should be as free as possible ”.
He believes the media furor over Trump will begin to subside after January 20, when Biden takes office.
“There are indications that it may come in 2024, but the emphasis is now going to be on Biden, because he is going to be president, assume extraordinary power and have to deal with extraordinarily difficult problems.
Trump will always be a story, but I hope this subsides and becomes a secondary, not the main US story. "
Can the assault on the Capitol end those aspirations?
"Maybe yes, or maybe he just realizes that it is too high a mountain to climb with the things he has left behind, a saturated health system, with more than 300,000 dead."
The pandemic
Woodward is not interested in the rankings of who has been the worst president in recent history and, although he admits the severity of the assault, he is constantly focusing on managing the pandemic.
“The things that Trump has been
impeachment for
, inciting a riot on Capitol Hill, are horrible and some people died there.
But the virus has killed more than 300,000 people.
I am not saying that he could have prevented everything, but many of them could, simply by asking people to wear a mask, to keep a safe distance, to wash their hands.
If I had done that in February, perhaps the virus would be under control in this country, "he emphasizes.
The issue leads directly to the very controversy that the journalist's book generated.
Rage
revealed that Trump knew the coronavirus was deadly and, for months, deliberately misled the public about its lethality.
Meanwhile, in press conferences, Trump told the public “we have practically stopped it” (on February 2) or “one day it will disappear, like a miracle” (February 27), to Woodward he would say on February 7: “ You just breathe and it spreads ”.
“And that is very complicated.
It is very delicate.
It is even more deadly than a severe flu.
It's deadly. "
On March 19, he admitted in another talk: “I always wanted to downplay it.
I still like to downplay it because I don't want to create panic. "
When the book came out in September, Woodward was criticized for having kept quiet about such discrepancies until the publication of his book, while people died.
The journalist protests: “Anyone who has read the book realizes that this is not true.
He told me in February that the virus was airborne and that it was worse than the flu, and in February I thought - and the world thought - that the virus was in China.
I didn't think he was talking about the United States.
It was not until May when I found out about that meeting that he held in January and in which they had sent a detailed alert, but in May, everyone knew about the virus and the virus was decimating people, I was not going to tell the things people did not know.
I was able to do it in the book, which came out before the elections ”.
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