Bob Woodward’s New Book Claims Trump Knew COVID-19 Was Deadly and Lied About It

World-renowned journalist Bob Woodward has the distinction of being one of the only journalists (along with Carl Bernstein) who brought down a presidency, so I don’t know why presidents keep talking to him. That would be like Al Capone sitting down with Eliot Ness or the one white Atlanta Housewife sitting down with NeNe Leakes so that she could hear: “Your slave is behind you.”

Nevertheless, the commanders-in-chief keep talking and they keep getting their asses exposed.

In Woodward’s new book Rage, the Washington Post associate editor notes that Trump not only knew of the dangers we faced with the coronavirus but he admitted to lying about the impending doom to the American people.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a Feb. 7 call, the Washington Post reports. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”

“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis, the Post notes.

This was after the president had been briefed that this would be the “biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Trump. “This is going to be the roughest thing you face.”

But Trump wasn’t saying any of this publicly. In fact, he was on a national stage claiming that it was all no big deal and that it wouldn’t be any worse than the seasonal flu and claiming, like magic, one day it would all just disappear. He assured America that it was all under control and it took him some weeks to finally admit that the virus could be spread through the air. Oh, and during this whole time, the president wasn’t wearing a mask.

Then on March 19, Trump reportedly admitted to Woodward that he was fully aware that he was lying to America.

“I wanted to always play it down,” the president said.

#TrumpKnew how dangerous the coronavirus crisis was all along—and he lied to the American public every step of the way. The Woodward tape is just more proof:

"I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down."

Trump must resign.pic.twitter.com/oSQIbwDUND

— CAP Action (@CAPAction) September 9, 2020

And now you know and that should be enough for the president to limp to the polls, but we all know that none of this will matter because white people.

But this isn’t all that Rage—18 on-the-record interviews Woodward conducted with the president between December and July—promises to deliver. The book will also touch on the president’s troubled history on race (and by troubled, I mean he’s a full-on racist) and his cozy relationship with tiny North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

From the Post:

In a second conversation, on June 19, Woodward asked the president about White privilege, noting that they were both White men of the same generation who had privileged upbringings. Woodward suggested that they had a responsibility to better “understand the anger and pain” felt by Black Americans.

“No,” Trump replied, his voice described by Woodward as mocking and incredulous. “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”

As Woodward pressed Trump to understand the plight of Black Americans after generations of discrimination, inequality and other atrocities, the president kept answering by pointing to economic numbers such as the pre-pandemic unemployment rate for Blacks and claiming, as he often has publicly, that he has done more for Blacks than any president except perhaps Abraham Lincoln.

In another conversation about race, on July 8, Trump complained about his lack of support among Black voters. “I’ve done a tremendous amount for the Black community,” he told Woodward. “And, honestly, I’m not feeling any love.”

They spoke again about race relations on June 22, when Woodward asked Trump whether he thinks there is “systemic or institutional racism in this country.”

“Well, I think there is everywhere,” Trump said. “I think probably less here than most places. Or less here than many places.”

Asked by Woodward whether racism “is here” in the United States in a way that affects people’s lives, Trump replied, “I think it is. And it’s unfortunate. But I think it is.”

And this fat orange bag of vomit had more to say about our president for life, Barack Obama, whom Trump told Woodward that he wanted to call “Barack Hussein,” but wouldn’t in his company to be “very nice.”

“I don’t think Obama’s smart,” Trump told Woodward, the Post reports. “I think he’s highly overrated. And I don’t think he’s a great speaker.” Trump noted that his boo Kim thought Obama was “an asshole.”

The book also includes letters exchanged between Trump and Kim after the two idiots met.

“I met. Big fucking deal,” Trump told Woodward. “It takes me two days. I met. I gave up nothing.”

Trump did give up a lot. He gave Kim Dennis Rodman (fine, Rodman gave Kim some Rodman time) but the president did agree to scale back the joint military exercises with South Korea, which apparently Kim didn’t like, and the meeting itself made the little fella feel supreme. But Trump’s bugging if he thinks Kim’s giving up his nuclear weapons as that the only thing he has to make him relevant in a conversation about doing big, dangerous things.

And I don’t care what anyone says, it’s totally normal for a dictator and an American leader to be pen pals even if Kim is calling Trump, “Your Excellency” and claiming that their meeting was like a “fantasy film.”

From the Post:

Kim wrote that he wanted “another historic meeting between myself and Your Excellency reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.” And he said his meetings with Trump were a “precious memory” that underscored how the “deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force.”

In another letter, Kim wrote to Trump, “I feel pleased to have formed good ties with such a powerful and preeminent statesman as Your Excellency.” And in yet another, Kim reflected on “that moment of history when I firmly held Your Excellency’s hand at the beautiful and sacred location as the whole world watched with great interest and hope to relive the honor of that day.”

You already know that Trump got off on being called “Excellency,” which, I think may also be a dancer’s name on P-Valley (Down in the valley where the girls get naked…) Kim also talks to Trump about everything, including how he finds suits his size and how he went about having his uncle killed, (the former is not true, the latter is.)

The two men have come a long way from their previous relationship in which they were headed for war. Trump told Woodward that he had all the weapons and wanted all the smoke.

“I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody — what we have is incredible.”

This nigga prolly lying.

Anyway, #TrumpKnew is trending on Twitter. The world is going to shit and you know who else knew? All of us that didn’t vote for that bastard.

Rage is available Sept. 15.