Il nuovo libro di Bob Woodward

Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu (CNN)



More than 190,000 Americans are dead. Millions have lost their jobs. Countless businesses are in ruins. A generation of kids hasn’t gone to school for months.

Yet despite knowing that the coronavirus was highly dangerous, viciously contagious and much worse than even the most severe flu, President Donald Trump delayed mobilizing the US government immediately. Worse, he refused to share what he knew and warn the American people, insisting everything would be fine.

Oh yes, and it’s all on tape.

A dark storm that has been building for weeks over the White House — in the form of a new book by reporting legend Bob Woodward — burst midmorning on Wednesday. Even by the standards of the Trump administration, this was a political blockbuster to end all blockbusters.

The book “Rage,” due to be published next week, lays bare the most staggering act of presidential negligence of modern times. Unlike the scandals of Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, in which political corruption and personal failings mushroomed into cover-ups and abuses of power, Trump’s transgression shows that he abrogated the most basic duty of a president: safeguarding the health and safety of the American people.

It was clear from his actions for months that Trump publicly denied the potency of the virus and played down its impact. But to hear him say that he knew better in audio recordings made by Woodward is something else. By the way, Election Day is less than eight weeks away.

What we've learned

'This is deadly stuff' Trump told Woodward in a February 7 interview that Covid-19 was airborne and “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.” Yet for weeks afterward, the President told Americans that it was comparable to the flu and predicted that the virus would just go away.

Fears of nuclear war

Woodward’s reporting also delves into topics beyond the pandemic. He quotes top US security officials saying they feared a nuclear war with North Korea amid tensions in 2017. Then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis slept in his clothes in case of a launch by the isolated state, and repeatedly went to Washington National Cathedral to pray, according to Woodward.

Love letters
Once they were talking, North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un reportedly flattered Trump in what the President has called “love letters," writing that another meeting would be like a scene from “a fantasy film” and describing their relationship as a "magical force."
A secret weapon
Trump boasted to Woodward that the US has a new secret nuclear weapons system. Defense sources confirmed the mystery weapon.
'We would have saved lives'eacting to the Woodward revelations, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said Wednesday that he would have taken more drastic actions to curb the pandemic earlier. "If we had known that earlier, we would have shut the state meaningfully earlier. We would have gone to a mandatory masking policy meaningfully earlier. We would have had a stay-at-home mandate put in place, all of which we did and we did it about as early as any American state but we would have done it earlier and undoubtedly would have saved lives," he told CNN's Pam Brown. "I can't tell you, as I sit here, how many we would have saved, but there's no question in my mind we would have saved lives."