Consider This from NPR - Bob Woodward's newest book is making headlines

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Legendary journalist Bob Woodward's new book War, like so many of his books about the American presidency over the last half century, is generating headlines.But Woodward's work is about a lot more than juicy nuggets that rocket around cable news and social media.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Legendary journalist Bob Woodward's new book, War, like so many of his books about the American presidency over the last half century, is generating headlines. Like the one about the COVID test machine that then-President Donald Trump sent Russian President Vladimir Putin in the early days of the pandemic. And new revelations from Bob Woodward about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Trump secretly sent to Putin scarce COVID testing machines for his personal use. Or the seven secret phone calls Woodward reports that Trump had with Putin after Trump left office. The two have spoken as many as seven times since he left the White House. And the detail that Secretary of State Antony Blinken nudged President Joe Biden toward his decision to drop out of the race after that debate in June. Consider this. Woodward's book is chock full of eye-popping details. But these books, Woodward writes, are about a lot more than the juicy nuggets that rocket around cable

news and social media. From NPR, I'm Scott Tedfro. The Code Switch team spent Election Day talking to folks about how the outcome might impact them. It's a time capsule of people's hopes and fears before they knew the results. One way or another, there's a change coming. I wanted to vote for Trump, but I voted for her. Gays for Trump. I cried this morning. I've been crying on and off.

I'm terrified. Listen to Code Switch, the podcast about race and identity from NPR. On Shortwave, we know the human body is this amazing singular thing. Capable of facing down all kinds of infection and disease, from managing UTIs to cancer to long COVID, our show is dedicated to destigmatizing our relationship to our bodies. Listen to the shortwave podcast from NPR.

Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail and beyond. We don't just want to tell you what happened. We tell you why it matters. Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single's new book, War, details the work of the Biden administration's national security team as it navigated two wars in two different parts of the world. Woodward's reporting takes us right in the room where it happened and into the key meetings where major decisions about war and peace were being made. That is especially valuable in an administration like Joe Biden's, which has been so careful and scripted in public appearances. I spoke to Bob Woodward late last week.

I wanted to start with the war in Ukraine, actually, because we knew from public statements from President Biden, from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and others, that there were deep concerns about the threat of nuclear weapons. But in the book, you describe detailed meetings where the Biden administration is taking this incredibly seriously. They're very concerned. How real was the threat of nuclear weapons in the fall of 2022? Well, it becomes very vivid because of the intelligence and because of the assessment. It's 50 percent, a coin flip, as one of Biden's aides says.

And the worry is so deep. Oh, my God, we're going to have nuclear use in the Biden presidency, which is the last thing or one of the last things he wants. And so they're all over it. Can you walk us through some of the reporting that you've gathered of the direct phone calls from the Secretary of Defense and others to their counterparts in Russia saying, don't do this? Yeah.

I mean, the most vivid one is Secretary of Defense Austin. There is a, I have a literal transcript, and if you'll permit me to read some of it, because it makes the knowledge that they have real, and it makes how they're dealing with this crisis. And so Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, they agree in the NSC, let's call your counterpart Sergei Shogun. And first Austin says to Shogun, we know you are contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. First, any use of nuclear weapons on any scale against anybody would be seen by the United States and the world as a world-changing event. There is no scale of nuclear weapons use that we could overlook or that the world could overlook. In other words, it's just, hey, what's going on? It's we know. And so here it goes on and says, if you did this, all the restraints that we have been

operating under in Ukraine would be reconsidered, Austin said. And, quote, this would isolate Russia on the world stage to a degree you Russians cannot fully appreciate. Shogu says, quote, I don't like kindly to being threatened. Austin says, I think in one of the bluntest open interchanges I've ever learned the details of at this high level. Mr. Minister, Austin said, I am the leader of the most powerful military in the history of the world. I don't make threats. You've been covering national security for a while now. You've been covering administrations from the Nixon administration on. Was this the most serious nuclear threat that you've reported on? Yes, because they're talking about it and in dealing with Ukraine and the way Putin looks at this and the doctrine of we can't have a catastrophic battlefield loss. In that situation, we are dancing in history in a way, and they know it. What was Vice President Harris' role in all of these big national security conversations,

these key moments that we're talking about, the beginning of the Ukraine war, the Russian nuclear threat, the early days of the Israel-Hamas war? She's going to president school. That's what vice presidents do. And as best I can tell, she's at almost all of the meetings. She gets involved. and at one point they're trying to actually respond to, and within the NSC they're discussing what to do when Israel has really kind of pushed back Iran. I mean, not kind of, but really eliminated massive numbers of ballistic missiles. And they're in the NSC. And Biden, I think she's remote on a screen. And he says, you know, what should we do? And she's the one who says, take the win. Take the win. And Biden goes through his response and literally says, take the win to Netanyahu. That's his theme. Stop the momentum of this catastrophe. And that did lead to a slight cooling of the ramping up of tension between Israel and Iran, at least in that particular moment after that first wave of

airstrikes on Israel. Yeah, exactly. I do want to ask, with Ukraine specifically, there are so many moments that you document where it could have gone either way. It could have expanded into a much more serious confrontation that drew in other countries. There could have been a nuclear exchange. Any sense from the conversations you were having, from the interviews you were doing, how the Ukraine war would have played out differently had Donald Trump been in the White House. I quote Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor for Biden, saying that if Trump had been president, Putin would be in Kiev now. Why? Because Trump, who loves dictators and the unity of power in one person would have waved Putin right into Kiev. There would have been no pushback. Why? And this is what Jake Sullivan says,

which has a lot of truth. Trump loves dictators. Bob Woodward's War is a lot like his more than a dozen other books about presidential administrations. But in this book, Woodward goes a step further than he has before. In an epilogue, you kind of give your conclusion to all of it. I've read just about all of your books, and I didn't remember you weighing in in that way before. No, that's quite correct. I tried to – but this was so clear, and maybe – not maybe. I definitely am getting older, and as I go around and – what do you think?

What's your – You know, when the the repertorial curtain comes down oh, I'm just a reporter I'm just a reporter I think in this case because I was able to get enough detail

about the sequences that it was almost an obligation to tell people, yeah, this is what I think. Washington politics has changed so much since you started writing about presidents. Has that changed the way that you report these books?

No. I mean, the way to report the book is to report the book and keep calling people, keep doing it, keep going back, keep trying to make sure you give people an opportunity and to state their experience and get notes and documents and take readers as close as possible to not just the language but the emotions that are emitted in these debates. Do you think it's changed the way people read these books or changed the effect of the books on the political scene? That's a big question. I don't know.

Because we just seem to be in a world where very few new revelations seem to affect the political consensus. Well, that's fine. But no, I think they do. In this book is the information that was not known about Trump sending the COVID testing machines, not just the tests, but the machines to Putin and the discussion he has with Putin about this. And Putin says, you know, don't tell anyone. And Trump, oh, I don't care. Putin says, no, don't tell anyone because he's looking out. This is an alliance. And, of course, what do they do? Cover it up.

I noticed Vice President Harris picked up on this. You could just see her emotions about here we are in this epidemic and the president of the United States is taking expensive, coveted testing machines and sending them to Putin and Russians and then they cover it up. They agree, you know, as is always said, the cover up is often worse than the crime. Yeah. I want to end by going back to something that my, an interview you did with my

colleague, Mary Louise Kelly, when your book Rage came out in 2020. You seem to indicate at that time that sometimes you questioned why you kept getting drawn back into doing another one of these books and keep going at it. And I'm curious how you're thinking about that now. Are you already thinking there's a new president coming in in a few months, I better get back to work? Or how are you thinking about that question? I'm thinking about I need to get back to work. That's journalist Bob Woodward. His latest book out today is War.

Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. This episode was produced by Avery Keatley and Brianna Scott. It was edited by Courtney Dornan. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. On the Embedded podcast, every Marine takes an oath to protect the Constitution. It's Consider This from NPR. Both episodes available now. You care about what's happening in the world. Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events.

We don't just tell you world news. We take you there. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day.