Rage

I always thought that Trump had surrounded himself with mediocre “advisors,”, that he didn’t know the difference and/or the intellectual gurus would be banished. Not so. The more I read about Matt Pottinger, he could have been our hero if Trump would have listened to him from the beginning. Mr. Pottinger had been the Deputy National Security Advisor for three years. He had lived in China for seven years, and was formerly a Wall Street Journal reporter. He is a China scholar and speaks Mandarin enabling him to communicate directly. Apparently, he alerted Trump that China concealed the outbreak for three months. Therefore, we had an in-house expert who alerted the President. In February, 2020, Trump contacted Bob Woodward at 9:00 pm to set up and begin what came to be seventeen interviews. The rest is history as is said, but when we have a President who would prefer to work with despots, our democracy becomes precarious. Woodward uses flashbacks and tells us about former advisors, like Rex Tillerson and General Mattis (Mad Dog). I found it interesting that both men at the beginning of their tenure agreed on a united front before presenting any advice or facts to the President. Dan Coats is quite interesting. I was not aware of his extreme religious fervor or the strong influence of his wife, Marsha Coats, who approved of her husband going to work for Trump. Not because she liked him or his egregious behavior, but that he says he is pro-life. As I was reading the book, I was startled that Trump actually understood the mammoth scale of this oncoming pandemic and how it could ravage the U.S. population. He chose to “play it down,” for what purpose I am still not sure. Did he think it would go away? Nothing vanished, as of this writing there are 190,000 dead and he, with his usual candor, lied and lied to the American people. It is hard to believe the nation is polarized about his re-election or the fact that he has our best interests at heart. He can still win; the Congressional Republicans apparently believe their best gamble for retaining their jobs is with him. It remains difficult for me to accept that Trump consented to be taped, on the record! Is he delusional? Woodward must have a talented, large staff. The editing is superb. Each chapter is just about the right length. It is slick and filled with facts that will become historic. As I think about this “masterpiece,” I found Rosenstein’s role confusing. I remain mystified about his supporters, who allow themselves to be targets for Covid 19, when they attend his rallies. The President, unmasked, is safely on a stage, elevated from the masses. They seem to have the opposite of rage, they are excited and apparently want more lies and deceit. They seem to be racist, anti-immigrant and love their tax breaks. Trump bragged that his affinity for dictators elicits more productive relationships that benefit himself, not the citizens of America. No kidding. Woodward emphasized that Trump was reluctant to propel the massive power of the federal government to eradicate Covid. It seemed to be our only safeguard.

YES to reading this book. The sequel to Fear, with Rage Mr. Woodward has taken the reader into the Oval Office and backed it up with proof of facts – including audio tapes that were recently released – of the incompetence and narcissism that currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Once again, Mr. Woodward has provided insight into the mind (or mindlessness) of Trump, as has been supported by members, both current and former, of his own Cabinet, as well the now-infamous recently-released audio tapes. Between the coronavirus lies told to the American people by Trump, Pence and pretty much everyone associated with them (with the exception of Dr. Fauci), to Trump’s comments regarding our highly-respected military, to Trump’s ridiculous braggadocious remarks comparing ‘meeting women to his relationship with Kim Jong Un,’ and his comments regarding racism in America, there’s really not much left to say except we must vote in November. Add this book to the long-growing list of authors who have recently released factual, detailed books about their dealings with Trump and you will continue to see the same pattern. I pretty much found this to be another “can’t set down until I finish” book. It should be noted that the facts in this book really can’t be disputed as Mr. Woodward has backed up each and every one. However, I will agree with those who have stated that the conversation that occurred on February 7 where Trump verbally acknowledged facts regarding coronavirus, including how dangerous, how widespread and that it was airborne should have been released far before now. February 7 would have been the right day to release that tape, in my opinion. Additional facts that can’t be disputed are that starting at the end of March, Trump and Pence began lying to the American people completely contradicting what Trump knew on February 7; and now in mid-September, as we’ve lost nearly 200,000 American lives and the number grows daily, the lies continue. I was blown away reading Mr. Woodward’s book Fear, and now Rage has pretty much picked up where that one left off. Mr. Woodward has provided truths and facts that came from hours of research. I highly recommend that you read this book before you cast your November ballot. If you had any doubts about whether you should sit this election out, Rage will leave you with none.

The more I think about it, the more this book gets to me. The conversations Woodward has recorded absolutely blow my mind. While this book is not as engaging as Disloyal by Cohen was, writing-wise, it more than makes up for it in the sheer amount of data and detailed observations from those around the president. This isn’t Watergate type investigating, but it’s thorough and instructive. You can tell it’s written by a seasoned journalist. I’m a life-long Republican who read Rage because I’m looking for more data on Trump. I am spending so much time internally debating if I can in good conscience vote for Trump simply to stay loyal to the Republican party. I make up my mind to vote for someone else, swing back and tell myself I’d be supporting the party – not Trump – if I vote for him, and the pendulum starts its swing back again. There are things that I really like about the Republican party and things that I don’t like. A major sticking-point at the moment is that they nominated Trump for reelection. I still cannot wrap my mind around that. Anyway, I’d recently read Disloyal by Michael Cohen, which reinforced my belief, developed over the last 8 or 9 months, that there is something not quite right with President Trump. His actions as reported in the news and his tweets have been simply bizarre. The inconsistencies and contradictions in his narrative, the self-centeredness and self-promoting, the lies, the seeming lack of accurate recall, the level of hate and rage leveled at people who were recently praised, it’s all strangely familiar. I’m one of the caregivers for my dad-in-law, who suffers from narcissism, Parkinsonism, and dementia, among other things, and Trump’s and my dad-in-law’s behaviors are weirdly and alarmingly alike. But I wanted more data since I can’t order an in-depth cognitive competency assessment for Trump. (Perhaps we can start a change dot org petition for cognitive testing and an MRI of his brain to rule out physical causes?) I felt that Bob Woodward, with his journalistic training, might possibly have a more balanced accounting given all the interviews he did gathering background for this book. I didn’t expect him to be totally unbiased, and I’m sure he wasn’t. But I did expect him to report the facts and give accurate quotes from recorded interviews, and he seems to have done that. I was a bit upset over the reveal a few days ago that Woodward knew Trump was taking the virus seriously in private, but minimizing it to the American people and had not reported that at the time, but I’d already preordered the book and committed myself mentally to reading it. I wondered if Woodward withheld that information to sell more books later, vying for another Pulitzer. I have no clue. (Woodward does have a comment about not being focused on that at the time.) Trump seems to have cognitive issues, and yet, it is really hard for me to step across party lines. I have voted Republican since the year I tromped through the snow in New Hampshire with other college students campaigning for Reagan and worked a press conference held for him on my university’s campus. This will probably the first general election that I do not vote for the Republican candidate. Truthfully, I don’t particularly like Biden, either. He’s a professional politician who’s run for president multiple times since the 80’s. That’s not a rousing endorsement in my book. (Please, people, give us someone new and idealistic.) And yet, he’s the lesser evil in my eyes at the moment. (And, no, I’m not saying he’s evil. That’s an expression.) Frankly, I want new parties or no parties or some change in the system that encourages new blood and better candidates or lets us choose new candidates if we don’t like the ones that we are offered. (Yes, I know I’m ranting.) Trump has serious cognitive issues as well based on his bizarre utterances. Some instances of him acting as if he had no idea of his previous conversations include when he told his intelligence heads to hold a briefing and then interrogated them the next day wondering why they had done that. Coats had to tell Trump, “because you told us to.” Not to mention recently Trump thought that simple cognitive test was hard and was confused enough that he thought that acing it meant that he was very intelligent. I can attest from watching my dad that a person can have serious cognitive deficits and still ace that test easily. The smarter you are, the longer you can fool doctors who only do the minimum testing. I’m not going to rehash the book, except to include some quotes below. The major takeaway from Rage is more testimony about Trump handling people, situations, and the global and national virus outbreak by spurning the advice of the experts he hired, disparaging those very experts, and doing things his way: impromptu, uninformed, and aimed almost totally at his own reelection. Due to Rage (and also Disloyal) I’m convinced that Trump has always been a conniving, amoral narcissist that Woodward has tried to represent honestly. His conclusion matches what Cohen implies: “Trump is the wrong man for the job.” Some quotes from Rage: “And in an interview with President Trump on March 19, six weeks before I learned of O’Brien’s and Pottinger’s warnings, the president said his statements in the early weeks of the virus had been deliberately designed to not draw attention to it. ‘I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told me. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.’” “‘And I think he’s going to have it in good shape,’ Trump said, ‘but you know, it’s a very tricky situation.’ What made it ‘tricky’? ‘It goes through air,’ Trump said. ‘That’s always tougher than the touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” "“Look,” Trump said, “when you’re running a country it’s full of surprises. There’s dynamite behind every door.” Years ago, I had once heard a similar expression used by military forces to describe the hazards and nerve-racking emotions of house-to-house searches in a violent combat zone. I was surprised at this “dynamite behind every door” language from Trump. Instead of being his usual upbeat, cheerleading or angry self, the president sounded foreboding, even unconfident with a touch of unexpected fatalism." “‘There’s dynamite behind every door’ seemed the most self-aware statement about the jeopardy, pressures and responsibilities of the presidency I had heard Trump make in public or private. Yet the unexpected headline from the call was also his detailed knowledge of the virus and his description of it as so deadly so early in February, more than a month before it began to engulf him, his presidency and the United States. And so at odds with his public tone.” “Decision by tweet, often without warning to those charged with executing his policies, was one of the biggest sticks of dynamite behind the door.” “On January 28, 2020, when Trump’s national security adviser and his deputy warned Trump that the virus would be—not might be, but would be—the biggest national security threat to his presidency, the leadership clock had to be reset. It was a detailed forecast, supported by evidence and experience that unfortunately turned out to be correct. Presidents are the executive branch. There was a duty to warn. To listen, to plan, and to take care.” “At the next intelligence briefing, Trump blew up in a rage and began to chew them all out. What was that briefing? he asked, apparently upset about all the focus on Russia. “Why’d you do that?” “Because we were told to do that by you,” Coats said.” “For nearly 50 years, I have written about nine presidents from Nixon to Trump—20 percent of the 45 U.S. presidents. A president must be willing to share the worst with the people, the bad news with the good. All presidents have a large obligation to inform, warn, protect, to define goals and the true national interest. It should be a truth-telling response to the world, especially in crisis. Trump has, instead, enshrined personal impulse as a governing principle of his presidency.” “When his performance as president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion: Trump is the wrong man for the job.”

“Rage” by Bob Woodward I just finished reading “Rage” by Bob Woodward. The book is relatively easy to read, although you do have to keep track of several of the important players and officials within or formerly within the Trump Presidency. It is clear that Bob Woodward has gone to considerable lengths to make sure that what he has written is true and that he lets Donald Trump have his say in the recorded conversations in the book. As with most recent books about Donald Trump it is possible to cherry pick just the passages and quotes that make Trump look bad. Many of those passages have been read or played on the late night shows and are indeed in the book. Trump lovers will probably not want to read the book because most of them cannot stand anything that questions their “Beloved Leader” in any way. On the other hand those who truly hate Donald Trump may feel that Bob Woodward was too lenient on Trump and quoted facts and conversations that in some cases support some of the things that Trump has said. I think a person with an interest in modern political history is the intended target audience for this book. Bob Woodward’s book title “Rage” appears to be drawn from something Trump has said about himself. Donald Trump said “I bring rage out. I do bring rage out. I always have. I don’t know if that’s an asset or a liability, but whatever it is, I do.” (If you read Mary Trump’s recent book about Donald Trump I think you will be able to understand just why this happens.) The book focuses on several areas in Trump’s presidency - The current pandemic, the situation with North Korea and Kim Jung Un, Trump’s response to George Floyd’s death and the BLM protests, the economy (Trump’s apparent preferred topic of conversation), and more on the pandemic. There are a couple of very possibly interesting revelations within these that I do not recall seeing so clearly presented elsewhere: (1) There is reasonable suspicion that once the COVID pandemic flared up in China they may have intentionally let the disease spread outside its borders. China put extreme quarantine limits on travel within from infected regions inside China and yet did not quarantine travel from those infected regions to countries outside China. At the same time they muzzled all reporting on exactly how bad the disease and how communicable it was from the world. There is reason to believe that China’s leaders did not want to be the only nation to suffer from the pandemic as a means of leveling the international playing field economically. (2) The USA and North Korea were closer to the possibility of nuclear war than even Trump’s rhetoric at the time would have indicated. When North Korea would take steps to advance towards nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles the USA would conduct “training missions” intended to show the North Koreans that we had the capability to strike them and their leadership. US/Soviet Cold War history has shown that sometimes such incidents on either side can result in the possibility of escalating into war. US Defense Secretary Mattis used to go for prayer at a nearby church several times because of his worries about possibly being involved in the “incineration of millions of human beings” if it came to that. That was besides Trump’s own rhetoric directed at Kim Jun Un which was in the papers and on the news. It is possible that Trump’s willingness to meet Kim Jung Un in person may have helped, at least for a while, to tamp down the risk (that he was previously fanning the flames to increase). We are not yet through the pandemic. Only time will tell if or when an effective COVID vaccine or treatment will be developed. So in a way it is premature to judge the results of Donald Trump’s administration in dealing with pandemic. What we can judge is how Donald Trump dealt with the pandemic - And Woodward’s book details that. The short version is that in some ways Trump but mainly the people working for him were effective in spotting the risk of the COVID pandemic emerging from China and appropriately shutting down travel from China. Unfortunately the virus traveled from China to Europe to the USA before travel from Europe was likewise shut down. On the other hand Donald Trump failed at consistently communicating with the American people the extent of the risk and the seriousness of the situation. While he did belatedly bring about a temporary shutdown that helped slow the pandemic and had people working on finding enough ventilators and protective gear, those efforts were later and less than they could have been had Trump been more honest and less wishful thinking about the pandemic. Donald Trump said something like the president has to open a lot of doors and there is the risk of dynamite being behind one of those doors - Meaning that there are unforeseen dangers. Bob Woodward makes the case that ultimately the greatest risk may be Donald Trump and how he conducts his presidency. Read the book if you want more details.

Bob Woodward’s is THE superstar of the insider presidential politics genre. This book, “Rage”, brilliantly shows why. His writing covers 9 presidents, from Nixon to Trump. As I see it if anyone has perspective and an eye to modern presidential history, this journalist is it. Woodward’s previous book about the Trump presidency, “Fear”, didn’t include interviews with the President as either Trump or his staff stonewalled interview requests to speak directly to Trump. Yet, Woodward’s reputation and gravitas isn’t something to be ignored, and Trump wasn’t happy when “Fear” came out and he wasn’t part of it. Whatever one thinks of Trump, he does have a certain genius for self-promotion — living by the mantra that the only bad publicity is no publicity at all. Trump didn’t make the mistake of ignoring Woodward with this book. He granted Woodward 18 interviews over an 8 months in 9 hours of conversations (which the President knew were recorded on tape or notes). Woodward interviewed many current and past insiders in the Trump administration, among them it seems were Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, Dan Coats, and Jared Kushner, as well as insiders who spoke under “deep cover” meaning their words could be used but only anonymously, a standard and understandable practice in this type of book. Yet, what makes “Rage” unique among insider tell-alls is the President’s explicit participation and his approval for others to do the same. That is Woodward’s genius, getting people comfortable enough to open up and tell their story. This is the first book to explore Trump’s relationship with Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s dictator. Woodward had access to 27 letters Trump and Kim exchanged over their bizarre relationship. Reading the gushing letters, especially those coming from Kim, was oddly uncomfortable, yet Trump took great pride in calling them to Woodward’s attention, and perhaps deservedly so because of the historic implications. Despite the thrill of the promise of their meetings, nothing came to pass with their negotiations. While Trump notes with some sense of accmplishment, which Woodward acknowledges, that there hasn’t been war between the US and North Korea, there hasn’t been much else either. In addition, “Rage” is the first insider look into the COVID-19 pandemic response of the Trump administration. The Trump interviews happened between December 2019 to July 2020 as the pandemic unfolded. The President shocked Woodward in early February by telling him how dangerous and contagious the virus was, in very knowledgeable terms, while publicly Trump was telling the people the virus was minor, under control, and would disappear by April (2020). As I was finishing reading this book, the sad and shocking (yet not surprising) announcement that the President, his wife, and many key leaders of the government have all come down with the virus, does not escape ironic notice as he is sidelined by a virus he publicly touted as a hoax. Pride goeth before the fall. As Woodward has extensively interviewed more US presidents and their staffs, his perspective is valuable. The access he has been granted by ALL presidents (except Nixon) is because of his reputation for through and fair reporting. In “Fear”, despite Trump’s criticism, I thought that Woodward was quite fair to Trump, showing him in a sympathetic light. In “Rage” again, he shows fairness, a quality which is why Woodward consistently gets the presidential access he does. He doesn’t blame Trump for the virus, but he does cite Trump’s response to that crisis as the reason for concern and Trump’s unwillingness to acknowledge the problem means to people. It is that same reaction for many issues Trump faces — a failure to see the human cost of the issues at hand. It’s the repeated responses to the crises — the chaos, the rage, the intentional divisiveness — that is the overarching problem. Woodward takes the reader through his reporting process as he interviews the President. Out of abiding concern about the pandemic and it’s cost to the people, Woodward tries to truly uncover Trump’s thinking, which he comes back to again and again over the course of several interviews with the President. Yet in the end, Trump largely misses the point, much to Woodward’s profound concern and bewilderment. After all his interviews and all his reflection about what it means, Woodward reaches one inescapable conclusion which he writes as the last words of this eye-popping book, “When his performance as president is taken in its entirely, I can only reach one conclusion. Trump is the wrong man for the job.”

I was attracted to this book because… I appreciate Bob Woodard’s reporting and analysis. I was drawn to the book based on the seventeen in-person and phone meetings Woodward used as a foundation for the book. This book was about the last tumultuous year of President Trump’s first term of office. The concept as the book was conceived would be a reporting of the Trump administration after the impeachment. While the President had been unhappy with Woodward’s first book about his term, the realization that none of Woodward’s requests for interviews had been answered. For this book, President Trump was willing to be interviewed by Woodward. And, indeed, several of the phone call interviews were initiated by President Trump. Things I liked about this book Woodward is a fair and patient interviewer. He shares much of the dialogue in these seventeen interviews verbatim. Since these have been released, we need the accuracy of the reports. He had used his many resources in Washington to bring a ‘deep background’ reporting of the key players in the Trump White House. While we do learn minor details, most of what Woodward writes fills in holes in the skeleton of what we have known. I was reassured to learn of my fears of the threats of North Korea were echoed by many of the top White House officials. But, as happens in many well planned projects, the breakout of a virus in China in late 2019 would change the scope of the book. Once again, Woodward’s comprehensive reporting helps being structure to a very confusing year. Why you should read this book While the book is fascinating, I recommend you read the Epilogue. It is a good summary and highlights the important conclusions from the book. This book lived up to the back cover copy The back cover is a few words on the work of Bob Woodward as a ‘great explainer of how government works.’ Woodward continues to live up to his reputation.

Wow! What a fascinating, shocking, and terrifying book Bob Woodward has given us. I’ve never been particularly political before this President’s term. Because of the protests, police brutality, Q Anon, Antifa, BLM, Coronavirus, lockdowns, masks, no masks, deaths, unemployment, Russia, China, North Korea, and a deliberate President-induced earthquake between “red” and “blue” states, that threatens the concept of “United” States. I began to read everything I could find like it was my job. Rage is a compilation of 18 interviews between Bob Woodward and President Trump. These interviews reveal the inner Trump as a man who seems very insecure, who needs confirmation that he is “the best” at whatever the task, and unfortunately, the economy, his crowning achievement according to him, has been negatively affected by COVID-19. Reading Trump’s words made me feel like I was listening to a little boy, desperate for attention and confirmation, while the nation waits for him to be an adult. The interviews reveal that Trump is focused only on the economy. In normal times, there is nothing wrong with that. Even when repeatedly asked about the other issues, he diverts back to how well the economy is doing, side-stepping the question at hand. With all the chaos, there are many more issues, critical issues to address. When Woodward asked Trump about white-privilege and his ability to understand the anger and pain that Black people feel in this country, he says, “No, You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow! No, I don’t feel that at all.” Then he says, “I’ve done more for the Black community than any other president in history with the possible exception of Lincoln.” Rage is a very well-written, fast-paced book with eye-opening, mind-blowing, insider revelations about the President of the United States of America, in his own words.

I expected this to cover all of Trumps mishandling of covid19 but the book does not begin to cover this until about 35% into the book and then ends with 105 days left of his presidency. The author makes it clear he has a due date for the book and well that's that. If I were one of the most well known authors of this and any generation I would have asked for an extension. There is so much more story to tell, as in we were in the middle of I hope the worst medical and financial crisis of our time! I feel even the author struggles with his epilog in trying to wrap things up when he really can't. There was so much more story needed to tell. I would recommend this book for its interesting interviews with Trump but I would not recommend it for its coverage of the health crisis. (B/D-)