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USA VIEWS OF BOB WOODWARD NPR ... All Things Considered : Bob Woodward on Trump, Harris, and war in Ukraine PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHi4SB0QoCo Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
Bob Woodward on Trump, Harris, and war in Ukraine \| All Things Considered \| NPR NPR Oct 15, 2024 525K subscribers ... 176,471 views ... 4.8K likes NPR is an American public broadcast service. Wikipedia Legendary journalist Bob Woodward’s new book 'War' — like so many of his books about the American presidency over the last half century — is generating headlines. Woodward sat down with All Things Considered host Scott Detrow to discuss the headline-grabbing moments documented in the book. • Read or listen to: 'Bob Woodward takes NPR behind the headline-grabbing moments in his new book' at https://www.npr.org/2024/10/14/nx-s1-... Follow NPR elsewhere, too: • Instagram: / npr • TikTok: / npr • Facebook: / npr Transcript 0:02 Bob Woodward welcome to all things considered thank you I wanted to start with the war in Ukraine actually uh because you write in incredible detail about how the Biden Administration dealt with that war before Russia invaded in the early months of the war and the proactive steps that President Biden and the administration took to De declassify intelligence and to confront Russia in public what was the main goal of taking those steps of of standing there in the White House briefing room and saying we know you're going to do this they wanted to stop it of course but what's U very significant in terms of foreign policy momentum uh and I write about this in the book The intelligence is so good I mean at one point they have a human Source in the Kremlin uh the electronic and other intell so they are as I write it's like being 1:04 in the enemy tent and this this unfolds with much less Ambu ambiguity than normally you see the the working out you know is somebody going to start a war MH and we knew from public statements from President Biden from National Security adviser Jake suvin and others that there were deep concerns about the threat of nuclear weapons but in the book you describe detailed meetings where where the bid Administration is taking this incredibly seriously they're very concerned how real was the threat of nuclear weapons in the fall of 2022 well it becomes very Vivid because of the intelligence and because of the assessment it's 50% a coin flip as one of Biden's AIDS says and the idea and the the worry is so deep oh my God we're 2:05 going to have nuclear use in the Biden presidency which is the last thing or one of the last things he wants and so they're all over it and being in the enemy tent they're trying to stop it realizing to a certain extent uh all the intelligence all the assessments they have Putin Putin is just obsessed with Ukraine it belongs to Russia and uh he writes some things publicly and there it it is not a borderline decision for him it is this is ours we're going to just take it reclaiming the Russian Empire this is something we're going to do and despite those uh those direct pleas threats urging not to do this the war begins and at a certain 3:03 point when Russia's on its heels uh like you said the intelligence says that it's it's a coin flip moment of whether or not Russia is going to use nuclear weapons can you walk us through some of the reporting that you've gathered of the direct phone calls from the Secretary of Defense and others to their counterparts in Russia saying don't do this yeah I mean the most Vivid one is uh Secretary of Defense Austin there is a i have a literal transcript of what he said this is October 21st 2022 and they have this very Vivid Rock Solid intelligence and so Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin they agree in the NSC let's call your counterpart uh Serge Shu and so this I have a literal transcript and if you'll permit me to 4:02 read some of it because it makes the knowledge that they have real and it makes how how they're dealing with this crisis uh first Austin says to shogo we we know you are contemplating the use of tactical nucle weapons in Ukraine first any use of nuclear weapons on any scale against anybody would be seen by the United States in the world as a world changing event there is no scale of nuclear weapons use that we could Overlook or that the world could Overlook other words he he not it's just hey what's going on it's we know and uh it it's very there's a kind of um analytical sophistication here you you 5:07 kind of wonder what really happens in these calls and so here it goes on and Shu says if you did this all the restraints that we have been operating under in Ukraine would be reconsidered Austin said and quote uh the this would isolate Russia on the world stage to a degree you Russians cannot fully appreciate Shu says quote I don't like kindly to being threatened Austin says I think in one of the blondest kind of uh open interchanges I've ever learned the details of at this high level Mr Minister Austin said I am the leader of 6:01 the most powerful military in the history of the world I don't make threats did you get a sense of what the response could have been because at the same time uh you you report President Biden saying in meetings the United States would not respond with nuclear weapons but on the other stand that is a very clear statement from from secretary Austin in that phone call yes I mean that's the where they're talking I have some of the things that Biden said privately um but here here's what the Russians have to deal with this kind of uh threat open threat and it's interesting because at the same point this is a real concern you have phone calls like that you have public warnings you have another round of strategic uh declassification of of intelligence about the false flag of of a Ukrainian dirty bomb that that Russia 7:03 is talking about as as kind of a pretext to maybe use these weapons and the administration goes out and says they're trying to do this and and warns them and then at the same time over the last couple of years you have President Biden and the officials that you're reporting on become almost less concerned with the red lines that they were worried about you know they go from giving Javelin missiles to Ukraine to giving f-16s to Ukraine to now the conversation is americanmade missil striking within Russia and I don't know it seems to me that those are almost two things in conflict with each other they were concerned about the real use of nuclear weapons and also they seemed to be thinking that the red lines that Russia kept laying down weren't necessarily the case how did those conversations shift well it's a reflection of the way Biden works and he he wants to make deals he wants to smooth the waters if possible 8:00 here and so he he enters in uh but you know this is a this is a if you I I've spent too much of my life doing National Security reporter reporting the issue of nuclear weapons is kind of like uh it is the silent Shadow as I call it over all of this and anyone in that world decisionmaking world knows that it's Central to prevent that and stop it and not take just the United States or Russia but the world this becomes a world changing issue is discussed here and so uh they pull out all the stops but there is always the contradiction of Joe Biden ah let's make let's work it out let's let's uh not have a 9:04 confrontation with a very direct conf confrontational approach uh as is outlined in this call I was very surprised to see that was so in their face you were surprised at how serious the threat was or the direct way that the administration responded to the threat both both yeah I mean this is this is any you you look at it and this is potentially historic and their goal is to make it not historic I mean as you said you've been covering National Security for a while now you've been covering administrations from the Nixon Administration on was this the most serious nuclear threat that you've reported on yes uh because they're talking about it and in dealing with Ukraine and uh the way Putin looks at 10:07 this in the doctrine of we can't have a catastrophic Battlefield loss that we have to if we confront that Doctrine and it lays it out in the book and their private calls between the generals on this uh in that situation uh we we are dancing in history in a in a way and and they know it and at the same time about halfway through the book there's an entire other war that breaks out and it's a war that has consumed the headlines um from October 7th of last year on and uh there are so many details about how the Biden White House is trying to make sense of what's happening and of trying again and again and again to restrain Israel's response uh a lot 11:03 there's a lot of focus of the first few weeks of the War uh especially immediately leading up to President Biden's unprecedented visit to Israel wartime visit to Israel to meet with prime minister Netanyahu and his cabinet can you talk to us about what the White House was trying to get Israel to hold back on and the way that Secretary of State blinkin and others leveraged that Biden visit to try and urge some some restraint well it it starts before that 4 days uh after October 7th which is just a Monumental event uh moment in history uh on by October 11th what prime minister Netanyahu wants to do is launch a preemptive strike on his Bala I don't think this was really known at the time was there much in the Daily Press I I don't think so but uh this was what 12:03 Netanyahu wanted to do and we show in October 11th and and this is uh Netanyahu at his most hey we're going to solve this problem preemptive strike Biden and the White House and the National Security team this is the last thing they want and I have the direct dialogue the persuasive efforts uh no you can't do this don't do this it won't work and uh netanyahu's very much Netanyahu I'm going to make my own decision yeah and I'll take uh into my advice what you say but I decide and I I thought it was one of those moment moments where you realize and Biden and the White House 13:05 and the National Security team realizes they have some influence but very limited influence and Netanyahu marches to his own drummer I think the book shows that vividly I'm curious what you thought because you write this book laying out all of this detail of of the Biden Administration trying to hold Israel back from a preemptive strike into Lebanon specifically and and you imagine I mean what that would have been like but there's an element of that playing out right now or was would that have been much broader than what we're seeing because as the book is about to to come to Market you have you have uh incursions into Lebanon you have direct strikes onto bayroot it it seems like that AV verion of that at least has taken place would this have been much broader uh it certainly could have been I I mean we we know when Netanyahu makes 14:02 a decision uh what is he quoted saying if in the Middle East you're weak you're roadkill yeah that is absolutely true in the early weeks of the war President Biden flies to Israel to stand with Benjamin Netanyahu much later in the book you have very colorful quotations of President Biden using all sorts of curse words to talk about Netanyahu were you able to pinpoint a clear breaking point or was it a serious of events well it it's an attitude I mean you know again these are the private comments normally we don't get or we get in a memoir 20 years from now where the president um sees uh Netanyahu as he says to AIDS a liar a blanking liar uh even at one point says privately to his AIDS uh that uh 15:01 Netanyahu is a liar and 18 of the 19 people who work for him are liars so this reflects the policy and the policy that Biden laid out uh I I think is important and that is it's pro-israel but not at all necessarily pro- Netanyahu what was president Harris's role in all of these big National Security conversations these key moments that that we're talking about the beginning of the Ukraine war the Russian nuclear threat the early days of the Israel Hamas War she's going to president school that's what vice presidents do and she as best I can tell she's at almost all of the meetings she gets involved uh and at one point they're trying to when they're uh actually respond to in in within the 16:07 NSC they're discussing uh what to do when uh Israel has really kind of pushed back Iran I mean not kind of but really eliminated the strike of massive numbers of ballistic missiles MH and they're in the NSC and Biden I I think she's remote on the screen and uh he says you know what what what should we do and and she's the one who says take the win yeah take the win and Biden goes through his response and literally says take the win to Netanyahu that's his theme stop the momentum of this catastrophe 17:03 and that did lead to a slight cooling of of the ramping up of tension between Israel and Iran at least in that particular moment after that first wave of of air strikes on Israel yeah exactly but everything is a particular moment yeah there's no uh and that's what's uh nice to be able to work on the long form in a book and you can see the steps and uh be and in many many cases the exact language former president Trump is a figure throughout this book you trace his his presidency in Exile and the way that he starts to regain momentum and reestablish himself on the national stage and and run for president again uh you not only quote people like um former uh joint Chief chairman Mark Melly 18:00 expressing grave concerns you at the end weigh in with your own grave concerns about a possible second Trump Administration yeah what uh General Millie so I think this is in March 2023 so it's last year not that long ago um Millie says in a interview that uh Trump is the most dangerous uh and uh really is gets to the point where he says to me you have to do something about this we have to do something about this now remember Millie's the sitting chairman of the Joint Chiefs talking about the president of the United States it is so he is so distressed about Trump's what he's doing I mean I my 19:03 conclusion and I think it shows it in the book uh is that Trump doesn't really understand the presidency does not understand uh it's full obligations and opportunities and he continually misses the boat and the scenes later with his big supporter Lindsey Graham the South Carolina Republican senator who tries to talk Trump off the ledge if you will and at one point says to him you know uh the people who think the Earth is flat uh the the people who think we didn't go to the Moon you you've got those people you need to and and Trump keeps talking and and the I think what's disorienting even to Trump's own 20:02 supporters is this idea that he really won in 2020 and he can't get away from that and Lindsey Graham supporter friend uh says you know don't don't keep going back to 2020 people in the Republican Party want to win and uh talking about 2020 uh that's over that's settled by the courts it's settled by the reality of Joe Biden sitting uh in the White House and and Trump is still talking about this obsessively and uh even at one point calls Graham and and says oh he's really proud of himself said I only brought up 2020 twice at a recent rally your speech 21:00 with Ukraine specifically there are so many moments that you document where it could have gone either way it could have expanded into a much more serious confrontation that Drew in other countries there could have been a nuclear exchange any sense from the conversations you were having from the interviews you were doing how the Ukraine war would have played out differently had Donald Trump been in the White House I quote Jake Sullivan uh the national security adviser for Biden saying that uh if Trump had been president U Putin would be in keave now why because Trump who loves dictators a and um the unity of power in one person would have um waved Putin right into ke would have been no uh push back why and this is what 22:04 Trump says or this is what Jake Sullivan says which uh has a lot of Truth uh Trump loves dictators it's almost like there are almost like two Joe bidens in this book there is a Joe Biden decisively making calls in in uh you know the situation room in the Oval Office uh trying to trying to bring along this NATO Coalition and there is the Joe Biden who as you report more than a year before that that fateful presidential debate uh donors had deep concerns about about his uh his appearance at fundraisers evening fundraisers where he seemed to go off script and ramble not be able to complete a thought did you get any indication during your reporting of all of the challenges that Biden was having particularly over the last year when it came to the age issue I mean I reported 23:00 in the book but it was not I'm doing the book and it's they're a number of references to this but there was no evidence I had that it was so alarming that as I have many times gone to my bosses at the Washington Post and said I'm working on a book but I have something that should be in the newspaper tomorrow yeah uh nothing like but I guess were you given the conversations you were having and the interviews you were doing were you surprised by how he carried himself in that debate because it's a very different president in these meetings and I mean this has been reported in so many different places the momentto moment nature of it but Joe Biden can again get in a plane and and and fly into wartime Israel and then have a debate where he couldn't complete a thought yes um I've written about 10 presidents going back to uh Nixon 24:01 and I almost reached the conclusion in nor in in order to I've I've written about 10 presidents going back to Nixon that's a long time ago and have got to known some of to know some of them U personally and in a way to be president you have to to be two or three or four people you have to live with the contradictions of this very important decision making and um the ones that work the best I think are presidents who are driven by evidence and not ideology or not hey this is the way we're going to do this but we're going to we're going to be flexible 25:00 so I'd give I give um me at the end as you may note in the in the book I give Biden a great deal of credit for steady leadership and not sending US troops to fight in these wars you did it's in an epilogue you kind of like you said give your conclusion to all that i' I've read just about all of your books and I didn't remember you weighing in in that way before no uh that's quite correct I I tried to but this was so clear and Maybe not maybe I definitely am getting older and as I go around and what do you think what's your concl you know in the the reportorial curtain comes down oh I'm just a reporter I'm just a reporter uh I think in this case because uh I was able to get enough detail about the 26:04 sequences that it was almost an obligation to tell people yeah this is this is what I think yeah Washington politics has changed so much since you started writing about presidents has that changed the way that you report these books no I mean the way to report the book is to report the book and keep calling people keep doing it keep going back keep trying to uh make sure you give people an opportunity and to State their experience and get notes and documents and take readers as close as possible to to not just the language but the emotions that are emitted in these debates do you think it's changed the 27:00 way people read these books or changed the effect of the books on the political scene that's a big question I don't know because we just seem to be in a world where very few New Revelations seem to affect the political consensus well that's that's yeah that's fine but I no I think they do I mean there in this book is the information that was not known about Trump sending the covid testing machines not just the tests but the machines to Putin and the discussion he has with Putin about this and Putin says you know don't tell anyone and um Trump oh I don't care Putin says no don't tell anyone because I he's looking out this is an alliance and of course what do they do cover it up yeah and which it me I noticed this morning uh vice president Harris was picked up on this 28:05 and you could just see her emotions about here we are in this epidemic and the president of the United States is taking expensive coveted testing machines and sending them to Putin and Russians and then they cover it up they agree let you know as is always said the cover up is often worse than the crime and she you know it's it's a political point she's trying to make but I I saw there was a kind of emotional connection that she was to expain about you know what what is the process what is the hierarchy of what I 29:03 care about evident in that the last thing I want to ask is something um we went back and and looked at something you you told my colleague Mary louiz Kelly when your book rage came out in 20120 and you said that that sometimes you almost question what keeps drawing you back into writing another one of these books how are you thinking about that now are you thinking about hey there's a new president coming in either way I better get back to work or what's your thought process on what you do next uh well I'm 81 and every day I learn that I'm not 37 uh it's different and uh but these th this is a immensely consequential moment and the moment for the United States is this election and vice president Harris 30:01 uh and there's a scene in this book where it's President Biden saying you know uh maybe he Biden would be have the best chance of defeating Trump and so she's she's inexperienced there's no question about that and so voters I mean that's as you know reporters you are inevitably trying to figure out what's in people's minds I mean collectively you know what's the what are people sitting at home watching all of this debate convulsion unpleasantry in in American politics what are they thinking I and I don't know I think I think it's very confusing time for people so what's the old 31:01 rule report yeah and then report a little bit more a little bit more if you can solves a lot of those problems when you're trying to figure out what exactly is people are thinking or saying or what's going to happen next that's that's journalist Bob Woodward his latest book out today is war thank you so much for coming in thank you

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