In Woodward’s new book, Trump admits to concealing true threat of COVID-19

In this White House photo from December 2019 provided by Bob Woodward, President Donald Trump is seen speaking to Woodward in the Oval Office, surrounded by some aides and advisers, as well as Vice President Mike Pence

In journalist Bob Woodward’s new book Rage, is it alleged that President Trump knew the virus was extremely dangerous and “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.” Although he was knowledgeable about the virus, he continued to play it down to the American people.

According to CNN, who obtained an early copy of the book before the September 15th release; There were 18 interviews Trump gave Woodward from December 5, 2019 to July 21, 2020. With Woodward, Trump let it be known that he had more knowledge of the virus early on and told him, “This is deadly stuff. I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

rage-trump — Bob Woodward’s Rage book cover

The book also includes harsh criticism from many of his former top national security officials. – National Intelligence official, Dan Coats said, “to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump. How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation.”

Trump responded to the Woodward book at a White House event. He defended his response to the pandemic. He said, “well, I think if you said in order to reduce panic, perhaps that’s so. The fact is I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country. And I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic, as you say, and certainly I’m not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy. We want to show confidence. We want to show strength.”

CNN has also obtained recordings of some of the interviews that Woodward conducted with Trump.