by Bob Woodward
“But as you know and as you’ve said, the murder of George Floyd triggered something in people,” I said. “Not just Black people, minorities, but in white people—who are saying, you know, like I’m trying to say, I think I’ve been a privileged white person. I know you have been, right?”
There was a three-second pause in the conversation. “No?” I prompted.
“I don’t get into that argument,” he said. “I’ve done a good job for Black people. I’ve done the best job of any president since Lincoln.”
“Now, here’s the other question,” I said.
“I don’t get into that,” he said. “I—you know—there’s no point to getting into it. All I can do is what I’m doing. I have done the best job of any president of the United States history, other than Abraham Lincoln, for Black people. I got criminal justice reform, I got Black colleges and universities.”
“Have you won their hearts?” I asked. “Because this is a business of the heart.” I wondered, did he not understand?
“I’ll let you know that at the end of my term, when they get their jobs back,” the president said. “By the end of the year you’re going to see numbers like nobody’s ever seen before. And it’s already happened, Bob. Two days ago, you had the greatest retail sales numbers in history, Bob.” The percentage increase between April and May was indeed the largest since the Commerce Department began tracking retail sales, although it was not the highest amount.
Trump went on, “Now, they’re all saying Trump was right. It’s beyond a ‘V.’ In fact, the market’s up today almost 200 points. We’re ready to set a record on the stock market, and the pandemic is ending, it’s weaving its way out—and by the way, we’re going to have a vaccine soon and we’re going to have therapeutics soon. Hey, Bob, could I call you later so I can get to these generals to make sure everything’s good?”
I said I still wanted to push on some of these questions.
“I don’t mind,” he said. “I hope you’re truthful. If you’re truthful, you’re going to write a great book. And if you’re not truthful, you’re going to hit me.”
I called him again that night. He did not call back. I wondered if that might be the last conversation we’d have.
FORTY-FIVE
Trump returned my call three days later, June 22 at 8:15 p.m.
“I just got to the White House, and I’m watching a—an event go down where they’re trying to rip down a statue in Washington, D.C., and we’re stopping them with great force, I think.”
Protesters were trying to tear down the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Square. As we spoke, police began to push protesters away from the still standing statue with tear gas and batons. “I’ll let you know,” Trump said. “But it’s terrible what’s going on. Terrible.”
“What do you think of all that?” I asked.
“I think it’s a disgrace. I think it’s disgraceful. And it’s—you know, it’s been going on for a long time, indirectly. But it’s gotten more direct. And I’ve stopped them. On the federal basis I’ve stopped them strongly. But some of these states are, in some cases, foolish. In some cases, weak.”
He wanted to talk about his rally in Tulsa, his first in 60 days, which had been held over the weekend. Less than half of the arena was filled and Trump had to stare into rows of empty blue seats, the focus of most media coverage.
“It just came out, that the headline, quote, ‘Trump Rally Gives Fox News the Largest Saturday Night Audience in Its History,’ ” he read to me. “I’d say that’s not bad, even by your standard, right?
“For two weeks,” he said, “these people did nothing but talk about, if you go there it’s going to be a death chamber. You’ll die, essentially. They basically said horrible, horrible things about, don’t go there, don’t go. Don’t go. The networks. You know, the fake news. Then we had protesters there who were quite violent.”
Tulsa’s top public health official had said he wished the event could be postponed, calling it a “huge risk factor.” All the accounts I found said there was very little violence.
“The first empty seats I’ve ever had,” he said.
How long did you work on your speech? I asked. “You’re using the teleprompter on that, you have to?”
“Maybe 25 or 30 percent teleprompter,” he said. “The rest was ad-lib. How long have I worked on it? It’s a very interesting question. I guess my whole life I’ve worked on it, right? No, when you think of it. No, I didn’t work on it. I just tell—I tend to be able to tell stories when I get up to a microphone.”
Turning to the virus, he said China “could have stopped it. I believe they could have stopped it.”
First Lady Melania Trump came in and briefly joined the call.
“Honey, I’m talking to Bob Woodward,” Trump said.
I mentioned the new book, The Art of Her Deal by Mary Jordan, a colleague of mine at The Washington Post. “So they did that book on you,” I said, “and they’re giving all kinds of credit to you for knowing how to live with this man.”
Melania laughed.
“I didn’t know this,” Trump said. “What book is this? I want to read this one.” He told her that I was doing a book on him. “It’ll probably be atrocious, but that’s okay.”
I wanted to ask more about the protesters.
“I think you probably think they’re wonderful people,” Trump said.
I made an argument for listening. “I, as a reporter, have to understand, how people reach conclusions, what their emotions are—”
“Okay. I’m okay with that.”
“You have to step out of your own shoes,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you?”
“Yeah, you do,” Trump said. “But you can see things even from your shoes.”
I laughed. “Okay.”
“I don’t think you necessarily have to be there.” You can see it from both ways, he said.
In our previous conversation, the president had accused me of drinking the Kool-Aid when I asked him about the idea of white privilege and the anger and pain of Black people.
“My question to you,” I said, “and this is the Kool-Aid question, do you understand people who feel passionately—I mean, the Black Lives Matter movement is real. There are a lot of people who are angry and feel pain. You were saying, hey look, I can’t be those people. That’s quite true. But I think it’s really important to step out of your shoes.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “I get it. I’m okay with that.”
I reminded him I had my tape recorder on.
“That’s okay. I don’t mind. You can have it on. I’m a straight shooter.”
I said I thought people wanted to hear “the president talking to Black people in this country about what you understand they’ve gone through. And, you know, we can get to what your remedy is and what you’re going to fix. But do you understand you’re a person of white privilege just like I am? And the question is, can somebody like you—because of your position—step out and say, you know, I’ve got some breaks, I’ve had advantages? There are people out there who have not, and I understand their anger and their fierce, fierce resentment of people like you and people like me.”
“I feel I do understand it,” Trump said. “But if I didn’t understand it, I would not have done criminal justice reform that nobody was able to do but me. I would not have done opportunity zones which have had a tremendously positive impact on areas that were absolutely dying. I would not have funded long-term historically Black colleges and universities,” known as HBCUs. “But I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t understand it. In other words, if I was not extremely sympathetic to the cause and the plight of what they’ve gone through, of what, you know, African Americans and the Black community has gone through, I would not have done, you know, a vast amount of money for historically Black colleges and universities.”
In December 2019, Trump had signed a bill continuing $255 million in annual funding to HBCUs and oth
er schools serving primarily minority students.
“The question is,” I asked, “What’s in your heart? I think people want to understand that you understand. What’s the essence of your responsibility as president?”
“I think the essence of my responsibility is to do a good job for all communities.”
“Suppose I had 10 Black Lives Matter people here as a focus group. And I said, here’s President Trump. And this is what President Trump wants to say to you about how he can step out of his shoes, to understand what life is like in your shoes. And what are you going to say?”
“I’m somebody that likes to get things done rather than talk.”
“Sometimes when you get in these things,” I said, “You have to lay it on yourself. And there’s no bigger ‘yourself’ in this country than you, as president. And I’m not trying to get you to say something you don’t feel. I’m asking whether you can understand the plight, struggle, pain of people—I mean it’s real. It’s been an awakening for me, if I may say that, at my age. I’m older than you—77. To see that they are saying, it’s been a raw deal, and I’ve not liked it, and it’s a form of oppression. It’s a new form of slavery that has occurred in this country that you’re president of. And I want to make sure I understand what you want to say to them. You understand that?”
“Yeah, I do, Bob. I think this. I think that I have some wonderful—what I can do best is get things done. And I have some wonderful things that I’m going to be doing for the Black community in the United States. And I did a lot of it until the Chinese virus hit us so hard.”
“If a member of my focus group said to you, President Trump, do you understand me, what would you say?” I asked.
“I would say that I really believe I do. And that’s why I’ve done so much for the Black community.” He gave his list again.
“Do you think there is systematic or institutional racism in this country?” I asked.
“Well, I think there is everywhere,” Trump said. “I think probably less here than most places. Or less here than many places.”
“But,” I asked, “is it here in a way that it has an impact on people’s lives?”
“I think it is. And it’s unfortunate. But I think it is.”
He had at least said it.
“But there’s a spiritual dimension to this,” I said, “where I think people want somebody to get up and say, hey, I get it. I really am moving toward getting my feet in your shoes. I know you wouldn’t like this, but remember Hillary Clinton went on a listening tour? Do you need to go on a listening tour and listen to people?”
“I think I listen to people—I think I listen to people all the time. I like to listen to people. I hear what people are saying. I’m able to get things done economically. And that’s a very big part of the problem. I’ll tell you what—had we been allowed to carry on that great economy. Had we not gotten hit by this artificial situation—it was an operation like a patient gets operated on. And now we’re starting all over again. Well, yeah, pretty much. Had I not built a strong foundation for the country, you wouldn’t be able to have the kind of numbers that were announced last week on jobs, et cetera, et cetera.”
Trump seemed to be referring to the June 5 jobs numbers, which was the most recent information released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While tens of millions were still out of work, 2.5 million jobs had been added in May.
“I do hear what people are saying. I do understand what they’re saying. And I’m doing things about it. Including, including economic things. It could heal a lot of—a lot of hearts. A good economy can take care of a lot of problems.
“Nothing gets rid of all of them, Bob. Nothing. Problems can disappear. And that’s what I’d like to do.”
“You remember when Bob Costa and I came and talked to you before you got the nomination in 2016?” I asked. “They were doing renovation on your hotel. And this is when you said to us:
‘I bring out rage in people. I bring rage out. I always have. I don’t know if it’s an asset or a liability. But whatever it is, I do.’ Is that true?”
“Yes,” Trump said. “Sometimes. I do more things than other people are able to get done. And that, sometimes, can make my opponents unhappy. They view me differently than they view other presidents. A lot of other presidents that you’ve covered didn’t get a lot done, Bob.”
“What do you think of your Justice Gorsuch, who kind of led the charge against you on LGBTQ issues?” Neil Gorsuch had just authored a 6 to 3 opinion ruling that the Civil Rights Act protects gay and transgender people from workplace discrimination.
“Well, it’s the way he felt, it’s the way he felt,” Trump said.
“It was against your administration’s position,” I said.
“Yeah,” Trump said, “but this is the way he felt. And, you know, I want people to go the way they feel. I mean, he felt he was doing the right thing. I do think it opens—I do think it opens the spigots for a lot of litigation.”
“Suppose,” I asked, “Donald Trump was on the Supreme Court, how would he vote on this? I don’t see you voting against freedom for more people—”
“I don’t want to comment,” he said.
I asked about his poll numbers that showed he was in trouble against Biden.
“You see different polls than I do,” he said. “I think we’re doing fine. The campaign hasn’t really started. It’s starting, you know, over the next few weeks.”
He returned to the Tulsa rally, “with the Chinese virus in the room,” as he put it. There were empty seats, he said, because people said, “Hey, I’ll watch it on television. And they did, because it was a very big night. And a tremendous night, even bigger on online.”
He shifted to his recent graduation speech at West Point. “I made a very good speech and they refused to cover it. They covered that and they were saying, maybe he has Parkinson’s” because of the way he shuffled slowly down a steep ramp “inch-by-inch. And literally—you know, you’ve done that, where you have a steep surface, and I had very slippery shoes. Believe it or not. If you have leather shoes, they’re very slippery on the bottom. I’m covered very, very unfairly. Including polls.”
In 2016, he said, “I had a poll, the Washington Post-ABC poll, two weeks out, two and a half weeks out, I was 14 points behind. And I knew it wasn’t true. I knew it wasn’t true. We complained about it. And I think that—but it was Washington Post, your favorite newspaper, and ABC. And you remember, they came out with a poll, two weeks, and I said, there’s no way.”
This was basically correct. An ABC poll had Clinton ahead by 12 points.
Trump was traveling far down memory lane. “How do you rate that election, Bob, 2016? Was that one of the great of all time, or was it? It’s hard to—people consider that to be a moment in history like no other. What’s your feeling on that? Even though you don’t call yourself a historian.”
In 2016, I had said Trump could win.
“I think I’m in much better position than I was then,” Trump said, “because I’ve done a lot. I also think I have a much weaker opponent.” He turned to Hillary Clinton. “Whether you like her or not, she’s a horrible human being, but whether you like her or not, she was smart. Very smart. And very devious, very tricky, very smart. And you said you’re 77, 78. That means you’re the same age as Joe. But it hasn’t hit you. It may someday. But it has hit Joe. And you know that. I mean look, you see. You see what’s going on. It’s a weird deal. He couldn’t do it in prime time. I used—remember, I used to call him One Percent Joe.
“Hold on, let me see something.” He was watching television or getting some news. “I’m just seeing something coming across the—oh, that’s funny.”
I didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t say. What’s debating Biden going to be like? I asked.
“I think he did at least even against Bernie,” Trump said. “I was surprised that he was able to get through that debate. And he didn’t win it but he didn’t lose it. You know, it was
a pretty even debate. And you know, I was surprised. So you never know what happens.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“You never know what happens,” he said again, returning to memory lane. “But let’s see what happens. I’ve had some very good debates. I wouldn’t be talking to you if I didn’t have good debates. You know that. My best debate was probably the second debate with crooked Hillary. I mean that was probably—that was a great debate.”
The second debate, held on October 9, 2016, had been somewhat overshadowed by the release of the Access Hollywood tape two days before.
I reminded Trump that on our last call we had talked about historian Barbara Tuchman’s book about World War I and history’s clock. “And the whole business of what happened in 2016,” I said. “And you came along, and the Democrats and your own party had no idea what was going on in America.”
“Yep,” he said. “Got them by surprise, Bob. Caught them by surprise. I’ll get them by surprise again, Bob. You watch.”
“Where’s history’s clock?” I asked.
“Well, we’re going to find out. I’ve done a lot. China set me back. I was sailing. I told you, I feel so differently toward the whole thing with China. This is such a terrible ordeal for the world. Not only just us, for the whole world.”
I said that some experts said “if you were going to imagine a virus that would attack with such efficiency and be so lethal on somebody’s lungs, you could not have designed a better one. And there’s some people who think that they manipulated this, as you know.”
“Oh, sure I’ve heard that,” Trump said. “I’ve heard many theories. I’ve also heard that it was incompetence. I have heard that it was a mistake. I’ve heard mistake, I’ve heard incompetence, and I’ve heard, you know—”
“Manipulation?” I asked. “And what’s the reality? Because that’s important.”
“Well,” he said, “I think we may find the reality at some point. But right now, nobody knows for sure.”
“If they engineered this and intentionally let it out into the world—” I said.
