Well, I think that both abroad and domestically were viewed as a country that follows our

hunches or political instincts rather than follows the truth.

We now have a president who routinely uses the WMD intelligence failure as an excuse

to ignore intelligence altogether.

I think that the most elemental truth, those most elemental lessons to be learned from

the whole Iraq saga, is that the truth really matters, the pursuit of the truth matters,

and that leadership actually requires that pursuit of the truth and absent that you will

not merely just be led astray, but you will lose the public along the way too.

Hello and welcome to Wise is happening with me, your host Chris Hayes.

It's after Labor Day, but I'm still in the quarantine closet.

I think that will change at some point.

There might be another quarantine closet in my future, but I'm in the quarantine closet

here and I'm speaking to you on a day that is still reeling from the news cycle growing

out of Bob Woodward's latest book.

I think the most explosive thing in that book, which I'm sure you've heard by now, if you're

listening to this podcast, is the president on the record on tape very early in the pandemic,

February 7th, for instance, basically saying, look, this is really dangerous and it's spread

airborne and it's much more dangerous than the flu.

Then we know that subsequent to that going out and telling people that it wasn't that

dangerous and that it was just like the flu.

It is similar to the flu and also telling Woodward that young people could get it and then

going out and telling Americans, young people are fine.

...