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Lowenna Waters
Sep 05, 2018
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Getty Images / Tasos Katopodis / Win McNamee
Veteran journalist Bob Woodward will release his new book, Fear: Trump in the White House, on 11 September, and it offers a tell-all detailed and damning account of the inner workings of the Trump administration's White House.
Woodward has written that his book is drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with first hand participants and witnesses, and that the interviews were conducted on 'deep background', meaning that the information could be released, but the identities of the interviewees would be withheld.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post, the title that Woodward worked at during the Nixon era and broke the Watergate scandal at, obtained a manuscript of the book, and has since reported that it reveals a 'nervous breakdown' of the Trump presidency.
Some of these include Trump viciously attacking some of his most senior officials; reportedly claiming that his condemnation of white supremacism after Charlottesville was the 'biggest f*****g mistake' he ever made; and his White House chief of staff John F. Kelly repeatedly calling the president 'unhinged'.
On Tuesday, the White House released a statement saying that the book is 'nothing more than fabricated stories', reports NBC.
Read the most explosive bits below.
Trump says that condemning white supremacists was the 'biggest f*****g mistake I've made'.
President Trump reportedly called his condemnation of white supremacists after the deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally, in which one woman was killed and 19 people were injured, the 'biggest f*****g mistake I've ever made', reports The Hill.
Trump faced wide spread criticism after he initially said that 'both sides' were to blame for the violence that broke out in Charlottesville in August 2017. He later condemned the neo-Nazis and and white supremacists after being urged to do so by his advisors. Straight after his statement, he reportedly said:
That was the biggest f*****g mistake I’ve made.
He also said it was 'the worst speech I've ever made'.
Trump called Gary Cohen's resignation letter 'treason'.
After Charlottesville, Trump said that there were 'very fine people' on both sides of the white supremacist rally and counter-protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia. His then top economic advisor, Gary Cohen, who is Jewish, was so disgusted that he handed in his resignation letter.
According to Woodward's book, Trump responded by saying:
This is treason.
John Kelly then reportedly confided in Cohen, saying:
I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times.
Trump called attorney general Jeff Sessions 'mentally retarded'.
Trump has been angry with Jeff Sessions since 2016, when Sessions excused himself from the Russia investigation early on. According to Woodward's book, Trump told his staff secretary Rob Porter that Sessions was a 'traitor'. He then continued:
This guy is mentally retarded. He's this dumb Southerner… He couldn't even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.
White House chief of staff John Kelly calls Trump 'an idiot' and says 'we're in Crazytown'.
In April, NBC reported that John Kelly called the president an 'idiot' behind his back. At the time, Kelly denied the claim, saying it was 'total b*** s***'.
Woodward's book, however, repeats the claim. Again on Tuesday, Kelly denied the claim in a statement, reports NBC. In the book, Woodward quotes Kelly as having said:
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.
When staffers literally stole papers from Trump's Oval Office desk so that he wouldn't sign them. He didn't notice
According to Woodward's book, the then chief economic advisor Gary Cohen 'stole a letter off Trump's desk', which, had it been signed, would have withdrawn the US from a trade deal with South Korea.
Needless to say, Trump didn't even notice.
Mattis told Trump the US was trying to 'prevent World War III'.
During a Security Council meeting in January, Trump reportedly asked White House staffers why they were spending money and dedicating military resources to the North Korean Peninsular. According to NBC, Mattis responded:
We're doing this in order to prevent World War III.
The book then claims that Woodward then told close associates:
The president acted like — and had the understanding of — 'a fifth- or sixth-grader'.
Ouch.
Trump ordered the assassination of Bashar Al-Assad, but the defence secretary ignored him
Just when you thought it couldn't get more terrifying, and surreal, it does. After Bashar reportedly used chemical weapons on civilians in Syria in April, Trump reportedly called defence secretary James Mattis and yelled:
Let’s f*****g kill him. Let’s go in. Let’s kill the f*****g lot of them.
According to the Mirror, Mattis reportedly said they'd get right on it, then told his staff:
We’re not going to do any of that.
This quote from former chief of staff Reince Priebus
When asked to describe the atmosphere in the early Trump administration White House, the Mirror reports that Priebus answered:
When you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and blood.
That pretty much sums it up, then.
More: Everything that Donald Trump has said about the UK on Twitter