Revered political journalist Bob Woodward recently released hours of audio interviews he conducted with former President Donald Trump back in 2020 and we’ll give you one guess as to how the twice-impeached Florida retiree feels about that.
The interviews — 20 in total, amounting to eight hours of raw audio — come as Woodward promotes his latest audiobook, The Trump Tapes, which chronicles the then-president’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, among other things. You’d think Trump would salivate over the idea of his voice droning on for the MAGA masses to enjoy but the reaction the tapes are getting from political analysts has made him a bit defensive over “his voice.”
According to Politico’s Jack Shafer, Woodward’s tapes prove that trying to make sense of the president’s logic is an exercise in futility.
“The interview is a hot diaper mess that mainly illustrates Trump’s narcissism and willful ignorance,” Shafer writes. “He doesn’t really know anything, which is forgivable. But he also doesn’t want to know anything, which isn’t.”
Despite Woodward tossing intelligent, hard-ball questions Trump’s way on everything from his friendship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to his lackluster response to the pandemic to his efforts to pressure Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on President Joe Biden, the real-estate tycoon had a humiliating amount of trouble stringing along coherent sentences and focusing on anything other than himself. Even Woodward gets frustrated with Trump’s inability to offer straightforward answers on the simplest of topics, saying, “He is staggeringly incautious and repetitive as if saying something often and loud enough will make it true,” Woodward writes.
And, despite Trump praising Woodward as “a great historian” on the tapes, he’s singing a different tune now that they’ve been released with so much scrutiny. Trump told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade that Woodward was “a very sleazy guy” for releasing the audio without his permission.
“In many ways, I like the tapes, I insist on tapes, but I also say the tapes belong to me,” Trump said. “That means Woodward has to get whatever deal he made, you know, we’ll probably end up in litigation over it. Because we gave tapes for the written word, not tapes to sell.”
That’s obviously not how any of this works, but that hasn’t stopped him from promising to do his favorite thing and sue the guy. He also took to his Truth Social account to complain about Woodward’s unauthorized use of his voice.
Who knew we’d reach a time when Donald Trump didn’t want to hear himself talk? Hold onto your pigs. Also, you can listen to The Trump Tapes via Audible.
(Via Mediaite)