Bob Woodward has released yet another audio tape of President Trump discussing the COVID-19 pandemic. Monday night on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the famed journalist debuted a recording from April 13 in which Trump admits that the novel coronavirus is “so easily transmissible, you wouldn’t even believe it.” Said Colbert of the clip, “At the heart of that is something extraordinarily shocking.”
Last night, Colbert managed to snag an exclusive recording from Woodward’s interview series with Trump in the Oval Office. “It’s in April, and he tells me what happens when somebody sneezes,” said Woodward, previewing the tape. “It’s quite revealing.”
In the clip in question, Trump admits that COVID-19 is spread incredibly easily, and he proceeds to tell a story about one of his advisors sneezing during a meeting. “I was in the White House a couple of days ago meeting with 10 people in the Oval Office, and a guy sneezed — innocently. Not a horrible –” the president can be heard saying. “You know, just a sneeze. The entire room bailed out, okay? Including me, by the way.”
“Here he’s saying — as you know, he’s downplaying the virus [at that time in April],” said Woodward after the clip concluded. “Last night in Nevada when he was going through that rally, god knows how many people there, all packed together. I wonder if someone sneezed in the front row that Trump would bail out again and get out of the way.”
Woodward added that “this is too serious a matter” for Trump to be downplaying, as almost 200,000 Americans have now died of COVID-19. “My reporting shows that he knew back in January … his National Security Advisor tells him that the virus is going to be the biggest national security threat to your presidency.”
“I once asked him, ‘What’s the job of the president?’” Woodward said of Trump. “And he said the job is to protect the people. I agree. I think most people in this country would. And he failed to protect the people. He failed to find a way to tell the truth.”
Watch Stephen Colbert and Bob Woodward’s discussion above. The discussion about Woodward’s new Trump tape begins at the 6:53 mark.
