Excerpts of exclusive Trump interviews released

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump spoke with famed Watergate journalist Bob Woodward in 18 separate conversations between December 2019 and July. Woodward, an associate editor at The Washington Post, collected the information for his upcoming book Rage, set for release on Tuesday. It discusses the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, race relations in America, and international diplomacy. Woodward wrote the book as a sequel to his 2018 work, Fear, which Trump criticized for not including any personal interviews with him.

What did Trump say? CNN and the Post reported on Wednesday that the president called the coronavirus “deadly stuff” in February before it began sweeping through the United States. Trump said in mid-March he “wanted to always play [the coronavirus] down,” Woodward wrote. The president told reporters on Wednesday that he had tried to avoid causing a frenzy and wanted to show confidence and strength.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Harvest Prude’s report in The Stew on Trump’s reaction to Fear in 2018.