The Daily Show: Ears Edition - ICYMI - Bob Woodward on "Fear" in America & President Trump's War on Truth

Episode Date: August 20, 2019

Journalist and "Fear" author Bob Woodward discusses the threat posed by President Trump's sweeping ignorance and his administration's willingness to publicly defend his lies. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. Hey everybody, John Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election, earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient-to-bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but

how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to the weekly show with John Stewart wherever you get your podcast. Please welcome Bob Woodward. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Great to be here. Can I just tell you, one of my favorite experiences was I was doing shows in Washington, D.C. and I went to the same restaurant and you got up to what you were just leaving the restaurant I guess but it felt like everyone in DC like turns to look at you like that's the guy who could write about us and end our careers you remember that night my fly was down

I don't remember because I was looking at your eyes Bob. You have written about nine presidents. It feels like for a long time people always regarded yours. Bob Woodwood, the journalist who is impartial, he writes the story as it is. I mean you wrote about Nixon as well, you wrote about nine presidents. This book feels different though. It still feels like you're impartial, but it feels it feels like it really, really condemns President Trump. Because of the evidence. Time and time again. If you look for a summary, it's a war on truth and he's making all these decisions in foreign policy in the economy and it's a war on truth. And he's making all these decisions in foreign policy

in the economy. And it's not based on facts. And so I think we're really, I think this is a pivot moment. Right. And the country needs to come to grips with what's going on. And there are going to be investigations going on for years, probably. But here you have a situation where the president, people who work for him, have to take papers off his desk in order to prevent him from beginning a catastrophe.

Like there was an order about a trade agreement in South Korea and you think, oh, that's just a trade agreement, but it's a part of an alliance with South Korea, where we have 28,000 of our troops there. We have top-secret special access intelligence programs that allow us to detect a North Korean missile launch in seven seconds and Trump wants to begin that process and Gary Cohen his top economic aid says I have to take that in order to prevent a calamity. Now, I've done this for 47 years, and I've never seen people who felt there was such an emergency.

This is an interesting idea. A president who has people around him, who publicly defend him, but then privately seemed to lambast his every single move. Because this book is not written as an observation. You spoke to people who work in the White House, who work for the White House, who work for the th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, in, th, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, th, in, th, in, in, thin, thin, in, in thin, thin, thin, thin, in thi, in thin, thin, thin, thee, thee, and, thee, thee, and, thee, thee, thee, thee, thee, thee, thee, thee, thee, thin, thin, thin, thin, the thin, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thin, thin, thin, the thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, the, the, thin, the, thin, thin,. Because this book is not written as an observation. You spoke to people who work in the White House, who work for the president, you have notes, you have tape recordings. I'm constantly amazed and and I struggle to understand the fact that these people work for him and they

all seem to know that the Emperor has no clothes, but they tell us that he's wearing Vesacchi. Yeah. Yeah. And what you find, because I have the time to really develop relationships of trust with people who are there, is the more they know, the closer they are to Trump, the more they are on the verge of having a cardiac arrest. Because of what he does he does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, th, they they th, they th, th, they th, th, th, they they th, they they th, th, they th, th, they they th, th, they they they they they they they they they they th, and th, and they they they they they they thi, and thi, and thi, and thi, and thi, and thi, and thi, and thi, and thi, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and th, yeah. Yeah, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi. And, thi, thi. And, thi. And, that that tho tho that tho tho the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th are to Trump, the more they are on the verge of having a cardiac arrest because of what he does and what he does not know.

And he will get locked into these ideas. Oh, like NATO, that security agreement that has kept the peace for 70 years. Right. He said, oh, we're wasting our money, we're suckers for doing this. And finally, I mean I never thought this would happen. The Secretary of Defense has to tell the President, oh we're doing these things to prevent World War III. Job one for a president, prevent World War III, right? Just to put it in context, can you imagine Dick Cheney when he was Secretary of Defense to Bush

Senior having to tell him, oh, by the way, this is all designed to prevent World War III. Inconceivable. It seems like the very basic understandings of the presidency and what's happening in the country are things that Trump doesn't grasp. But there's always something that people bring up and that is they say, this is just like Nixon now. Apart from his knowledge, they're saying like, oh, the shady dealings, this is just like Nixon. You actually wrote about Nixon. You are in many ways part of the reason that Nixon got into the trouble that he got into. Now, do you think this is similar to Richard Nixon? We're going to find out and it all

depends on the quality of evidence and there's a lot of aroma, there are lots of things going on as you're rightly pointing out, wait a minute these are violations of the law. Right. When does it get so serious that the Republicans will wake up? That's the question and they now are the enablers of Trump in all of this stuff and you get to them privately and you say what do you think and They say my head hurts so hard Tough we are you know this this look I mean just take in the book John Dowd Who was Trump's personal attorney in the Mueller investigation worked with him for eight months closely? Big supporter and said okay? you're that? that. the? that. th. the? thi. they're, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they they they they they they say, they say, they say, they they they say, they say, they say, they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they say, they say, they say, they say, they say, they, they, they, thi, thi, thi, thi thi thi thi thi thi they they thi they they they they thi, they their their thi, the Mueller investigation, worked with him for eight months closely, big supporter, and said, okay, you're going to have to testify

to this special counsel Mueller. And Trump says, okay, I can do that, no problem, so they do a practice session and Trump starts making up things, lying, blows up, and... In the practice session? In the practice session, and this is his lawyer, so you can't testify. If you testify, you will perjure yourself, and you'll wind up in an orange jumpsuit, like the one you picture Trump in. And then he finally concludes that Trump is effing liar. I know you're not supposed to say that word on the air.

Oh, you can say it here. You can say it here. I mean. Here's something that you might be able to help me understand. Because what I loved about this book is that honestly, it's a retelling of a story. I don't feel your personal attachment to it. It is a complete factual telling of a story and interviews that you have with people. But from your personal perspective, from the interactions you've had with some of the people who work with Trump, why don't they just move on?

They have Pence. What is the end game for them? What do they hope will happen? It's survival. And imagine, I mean, Merrill Streep, the actress, great actress said just recently, imagine what Donald Trump's 3 a.m. is like. Just think of that. He gets up and he tweets.

You look at this morning, he was tweeting from 7 to 10 or 11, all about taking defensive positions on all of this. You know, one of the things from doing nine presidents. You come to the moment when somebody asks you, well what's the job of the president? And my definition of the job of the president is to figure out the next stage of good for a majority of people in the country. Win a war, fix the economy.

We could put a board up here. And we would come up with a list. Not for the base or one party or interest groups. You know, there really is a next stage of good for this country. Right. As best I can tell, in Trump's world and presidency, that never comes up. It is not addressed. It's all about the moment of, you know, you saw that 20-minute oval office. It's all about Trump and his emotions, his impulses, and he got to the point of saying, well I'll close down the government and be proud of it. That will be a good thing. Well, come on. I mean, imagine the head of GM saying

that, oh, we'll close down all the plants and I'll be proud of it. So then do you think, do you think, if you just look at this on the face of it, one thing we've always said is, he has earned the nickname, the Teflon Don. It seems like nothing sticks to Donald Trump. Do you think there's a world where Cohen goes down, Flynn goes down, Manifort goes down, Papadopoulos goes down, everybody around him goes down, and he miraculously comes out unscathed? We don't know, but having Cohen, the personal lawyer for 10 years, we know Cohen taped all kinds of things in the Nixon case.

It was thousands of hours of tapes. I don't think those exist. But if there's one witness you want, it's the president's lawyer. Because you see, when Trump was in Newump was in new york real estate they uh... people would do deals with him and and they called it the Donald risk taking any arrangement with him and what they made sure they did is they would structure the deal so he couldn't get his hands on the cash flow,

on the money, because he would just take it out and they would try to prevent that from happening. So the operation, saddest moment in journalism and American politics of the last decade is we did not get his tax returns we should know his tax returns if anyone out there has them please let me know really really thank you so much for being on the show

the book is phenomenal a true legend Bob Woodward, everybody. Fear is available now. Go ahead and get it. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Ears Edition. Watch the Daily Show Weekn, Week Nights at 11th, 10 Central on Comedy Central and the Comedy Central Act. Watch full episodes and videos at the Daily Show. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to the Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and more.

This has been a Comedy Central podcast. Hey everybody John Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election, earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about the election. Earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to the weekly show with John Stewart wherever you get your podcast.