Bob Woodward on His Trump Tapes

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bob Woodward is not one to editorialize. But, during his interviews with Donald Trump at the time of the COVID-19 crisis, Woodward found himself shouting at the President—explaining how to make a decision and trying to browbeat him into listening to public-health experts. Woodward has released audio recordings of some of their interviews in a new audiobook called “The Trump Tapes,” which documents details of Trump’s state of mind, and also of Woodward’s process and craft. “I could call him anytime, [and] he would call me,” Woodward tells David Remnick. His wife, Elsa Walsh, “used to joke [that] there’s three of us in the marriage.” And, in the wake of Damar Hamlin’s accident, the staff writer Louisa Thomas talks with David Remnick about an uncomfortable truth: football’s danger to players is part of its singular popularity.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.
0:09.5	Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.
0:12.8	For over a half a century, Bob Woodward has been gaining access to and reporting on people
0:18.3	in the highest positions of power in the United States.
0:22.4	And when it comes to presidents, he has gone toe-to-toe with nearly everyone since Richard
0:27.8	Nixon.
0:28.8	And if you look at Nixon, sorry, he failed.
0:32.5	Right.
0:33.5	Why?
0:34.5	Because of you.
0:35.5	No, no, no, no, no, that's not the, I mean, there's, there's, there's you out there.
0:41.9	Woodward is every inch the reporter, not at all someone inclined to editorialize.
0:47.4	But in as many hours of conversation with Donald Trump, from before the election in 2016
0:52.3	through the initial fallout of the COVID crisis, Woodward came to see Trump as not just a
0:57.8	disruptor, but a real danger to the nation.
1:01.9	He's now released the audio recordings of some of those conversations in a new book called
1:06.7	The Trump Tapes.
1:08.3	We hear Donald Trump's state of mind in his own peculiar words.
1:12.4	But we also gain a greater appreciation for Woodward's process and his craft.
1:18.1	Bob, you are now out with something very unusual.
1:24.4	You've been publishing books, obviously, since Watergate about the American presidency.
1:28.8	Now you're publishing with the Trump tapes, an edited version of your raw materials, your
	...

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