BREAKING: CNN obtains Woodward book and interview tapes; Trump admits misleading public on virus

[ugabug]

Here is the recording:

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1303727747899035649?s=21

How stupid is he to actually admit to all of that on tape?

[DrScholl]

There's audio for this, so it most certainly will get coverage and cause damage.

[ProgressiveModerate]

As much as this angers me and should've been obvious all along, his base isn't gonna care frankly.

[Trump Is A Maoist]

I seriously hate this man

"You're eventually going to have Biden condemn the rioters, right? Hello?"

[Crumpets]

Everybody knew. You can go to the early threads on the pandemic on this forum and see how seriously we knew we needed to take this going at least as far back as the start of the outbreak in Italy on February 21-22. We were saying at the time that Trump wasn't taking it seriously enough, and it was literally just 7 months ago. We all remember it clearly. I'm not sure if this story can have much of an impact beyond "okay, Trump knew he was acting recklessly" vs. just "Trump was acting recklessly."

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=355597.0
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=355847.0

[Beet]

A little more "panic" back in early February would have saved a lot of panic and heartache later.

[wbrocks67]

As much as this angers me and should've been obvious all along, his base isn't gonna care frankly.

How many times do we have to go through this though. This is not about the base. This is about the 55-60% of the public that is NOT in his base, and every day that goes by that he can't get any of those back is a terrible losing day for him.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

So Woodward was sitting on these tapes for months?

Could've had some contractual thing to do with his book, but I'm not a lawyer or a business...person.  

[Landslide Lyndon]

So Woodward was sitting on these tapes for months?

Could've had some contractual thing to do with his book, but I'm not a lawyer or a business...person.  

I don't buy it. We are talking about thousands of lives put at risk because of his silence.
There are bigger things than a f**king book.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

So Woodward was sitting on these tapes for months?

Could've had some contractual thing to do with his book, but I'm not a lawyer or a business...person.  

I don't buy it. We are talking about thousands of lives put at risk because of his silence.
There are bigger things than a f**king book.

Hey, you don't need to remind me.  COVID knocked me completely out of commission for like two weeks.  And I'm still occasionally feeling the aftershocks from it. 

[Holmes]

The notion that he didn’t take the virus serious is incorrect. His actions show that he took it serious (eg banning travel from China early)

Lmaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[Landslide Lyndon]

So Woodward was sitting on these tapes for months?

Could've had some contractual thing to do with his book, but I'm not a lawyer or a business...person.  

I don't buy it. We are talking about thousands of lives put at risk because of his silence.
There are bigger things than a f**king book.

Hey, you don't need to remind me.  COVID knocked me completely out of commission for like two weeks.  And I'm still occasionally feeling the aftershocks from it.  

What infuriates me is that Woodward will now be hailed as some kind of hero and model journalist when in fact he should be considered an accessory to Trump's campaign of misinformation that resulted in thousands of deaths.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Lincoln Project is already on it:

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1303734624145698816

In any normal Presidency, leaders of his own party would be calling for his resignation by the end of the day.

[Don't blame me I voted for Harris]

Good lord.

[BaldEagle1991]

This photo is him being briefed about this virus back in late January when it mostly found in China.

Yeah he knew much earlier than that.

[wbrocks67]

This quote isn’t as bad as you think. Saying “I wanted to play it a down” is an informal, colloquial way of saying “I don’t want to alarm people,” based on the context. He wasn’t doing a deposition, so he didn’t seek to talk with razor precision.

The notion that he didn’t take the virus serious is incorrect. His actions show that he took it serious (eg banning travel from China early)

Some people will really defend him at all costs. Wow.

[TDAS04]

Not surprising.

Trump should be escorted from the White House in handcuffs, and imprisoned for life.

[redjohn]

This quote isn’t as bad as you think. Saying “I wanted to play it a down” is an informal, colloquial way of saying “I don’t want to alarm people,” based on the context. He wasn’t doing a deposition, so he didn’t seek to talk with razor precision.

The notion that he didn’t take the virus serious is incorrect. His actions show that he took it serious (eg banning travel from China early)

The talking point of him banning travel from China "early" when the outbreaks in the US were being fueled (obviously so, even at the time) by travel from Europe is tired. I don't think him saying he wanted to prevent panic sounds so bad, as there was a lot of panic regardless (the shortages of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, etc.)

Still, it's not good leadership to downplay something that was obviously going to kill a lot of people. He was downplaying it for political purposes rather than in the name of national stability.

[Horus]

The notion that he didn’t take the virus serious is incorrect. His actions show that he took it serious (eg banning travel from China early)

Lmaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Lmaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo @ this

Flashback: Joe Biden Calls Trump’s China Travel Restrictions ‘Hysterical Xenophobia’

https://grabien.com/story.php?id=278449

Is this a whatabout of a whatabout?

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

This quote isn’t as bad as you think. Saying “I wanted to play it a down” is an informal, colloquial way of saying “I don’t want to alarm people,” based on the context. He wasn’t doing a deposition, so he didn’t seek to talk with razor precision.

The notion that he didn’t take the virus serious is incorrect. His actions show that he took it serious (eg banning travel from China early)

"So a number that nobody heard of, that I heard of recently and I was shocked to hear it, 35,000 people on average die each year from the flu. Did anyone know that? 35,000, that’s a lot of people. It could go to 100,000, it could be 27,000. They say usually a minimum of 27, goes up to 100,000 people a year die. And so far we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States. Nobody. And it doesn’t mean we won’t and we are totally prepared. It doesn’t mean we won’t, but think of it. You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder the press is in hysteria mode.

He was at a rally in late February pushing that "27,000-100,000 people die each year from the flu" when he apparently knew that COVID had the potential to eclipse those seasonal totals.  

There's a difference between "let's not panic and put faith in our institutions" (which he starts edging towards before snapping back to the "hysteria" angle) vs. "c'mon.  You know how many people we lose to the flu each year?"

[CivicParticipant]

Yet another fabricated story that won't do much harm.

[Mike88]

I'm not surprised by this.

[new_patomic]

Sure, a 'travel ban' lol

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-china-travel-ban-45a2da12-8063-4ad9-ba28-61cdeb1ce0b3.html

[Ferguson97]

Yet another fabricated story that won't do much harm.

There's audio of him admitting it. Is the audio fake?

[Blair]

This quote isn’t as bad as you think. Saying “I wanted to play it a down” is an informal, colloquial way of saying “I don’t want to alarm people,” based on the context. He wasn’t doing a deposition, so he didn’t seek to talk with razor precision.

The notion that he didn’t take the virus serious is incorrect. His actions show that he took it serious (eg banning travel from China early)

This is a man whose own lawyers actually didn't let him go under deposition with Muller & relied on written answers so you're not really making the point you think you are...