President's School: Bob Woodward on Harris's preparation for Presidency
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Trump doesn't understand the presidency, doesn't understand responsibilities. And it's tragic for this country. And the idea that he might be moving into the Oval Office again would make

Everyone trembled, even his supporters, because his supporters know the extreme measures he would take. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped, and battle-hardened. There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America.

Good night and good luck. Hey, folks, and welcome back to the Lincoln Project podcast. I'm your host, as always, Rick Wilson. We are only a few days away from the election, and one of the most consequential books of the season is War by Bob Woodward. It is a history of the first, well, the only term of the Biden administration and a lot of the wreckage they had to clean up from the prior administration. I'm honored to have you on the show again, Bob. And I wanted to ask you about the story of writing this book and about

about how you approached it. Understanding we had just come out of a period of time under Trump, that one term that was so politically and, and, and, and, and,

physically sort of cataclysmic for America. How did you approach reporting the Biden story of how he was going to take over and try to turn the course of what had happened during the Trump term? I'm fortunate to have time, and I approached it empirically. What happened, found firsthand sources, notes, documents that supported the storyline. And of course, the conclusion is that

Biden made a very smart decision in December 2021 to not send ground troops to Ukraine. And so now we are in a position where at least this second, the homeland is safe. That decision...

to support Ukraine was not universally seen as a good idea with his national security team at first, was it? Well, there was a debate naturally, but it became so obvious that the Russian invasion was so brutal and a threat to any reasonable national order. If you say, all right, oh, like,

Putin did in Russia. Well, Ukraine doesn't exist. We'll just take it. It's ours. And of course, that's the war they launched, which is a war that began two years ago. And people realize this is a war of territorial conquest. This is, I mean, Putin's

The Hitler of our century has decided, oh, this country is mine. I'm going to take it. And that war is so brutal and ugly. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. But it's off the screen. It's off the radar. It's not being covered with the intensity that it indeed should be covered in the States. That is something that I, you know,

It got a lot more coverage in the very beginning. And I was curious about one thing. There were a lot of people that I knew, you know, former military and intelligence people who really believed Ukraine would only last a few days, that we were going to see Russian tanks in Kyiv within...

you know, weeks, if not months. And that really hasn't been what happened there. Not even close. And Ukrainians with U S a massive support, billions of dollars from the West has stood up to Russia in a way that now literally is, I understand it, uh,

Ukraine occupies, what, 93 villages in Russia. Right. It is something quite remarkable. You know, you talk about...

Jake Sullivan in there, and if Trump had been president, Putin probably would have taken Kiev. What do you think the difference would be in the handling of Ukraine? I mean, I know the obvious answers, but I'm curious about, were the Biden folks conscious of how different Trump would have been? Were they conscious of a moment where they could really define Ukraine?

you know, their administration as a contrast, as well as doing the right thing for Ukraine. But it's not just defining. This is a major war going on. And, you know, Trump, I mean, hilariously, tragically, as Blaine Zielinski said,

for the invasion. I mean, this is like in World War II, blaming France for what Germany did. Sure. You know, and so instead of sending military, instead of sending American troops, we built a large intelligence cooperation effort and a

and supply the Ukrainians with a lot of arms and technology. Not only supply them with an intelligence operation, but it's one of the big secret stories taught Ukraine how to build an intelligence system that works and functions in a way that will go down in the history books when the details are known.

Interesting. Interesting, because it does strike me that Ukraine, despite being outgunned and outmanned and out logisticed in this, they've always had an advantage of being a step or two ahead of where the Russians are, understanding how to deploy themselves wisely in the face of

And that that clearly as a you know, you can clearly see that the hallmarks of a good intelligence system, a hallmarks of a good intelligence program behind all that. Not not as good, but mind boggling as I report in my book. I mean, yes, our CIA and intelligence agencies have done to shore up and train and train

give equipment and techniques to the Ukrainians is one of the marvels of this century. One of the things that keeps popping up over and over again, both in Donald Trump's rhetoric and in the rhetoric of a lot of Putin supporters is,

oh, if you do X, it's nuclear war. If you give the Ukrainians help, it's nuclear war. If you give them F-16s, it's nuclear war. If you give them intelligence help, it's nuclear war. We are now 40 plus years past the, almost 40 years past the end of the Cold War. And

And or 30 years past the end of the Cold War. And this idea that the Russians are going to rattle the nuclear saber on every single thing, it seems kind of deeply wired into their foreign policy behavior. But how did the Biden administration look at that at those threats as they were just constantly being rolled out there?

Well, I mean, you've got to take it seriously when when Putin openly and then as I report, the intelligence came in that maybe there was a 5 percent chance initially that Putin would use tactical nuclear weapons when it got up to 50 percent very quickly. I mean, they're they're.

deeply, deeply worried. If we go into a world where the use of any tactical nuclear weapon, any nuclear weapon is acceptable, we have printed into the darkest period of our history since World War II. I couldn't agree more. That is a true risk factor.

You may not realize it, but every minute of every day, you're enjoying the most important freedom. The freedom that's brought to you by the First Amendment. You can speak your mind, vote how you choose, wear what you want, get your opinions out there for free, even if it's unpopular. You can put a sign on your front lawn that says, vote for Bigfoot, someone you can believe in. You can pray to the God of your choice or don't.

You have the right to be with the people that think like you do. You have the right to tell the government what you think about its policies, whether you love them or hate them. They are freedoms that let you be you, and they're all brought to you by the First Amendment. Learn more at freedomforum.org. So I want to change over to talk a little bit about the Biden administration and their relationship with Israel and Netanyahu in particular. And I always bifurcate that because

You know, I remember a lot of bilat stuff that we used to do with Israel. But it seems like there have to be two tracks these days because Netanyahu is his own particular handling problem for the administration and for any administration. But talk to us a little bit about how Israel and Netanyahu and the Biden administration, especially in the course of the post-October 7th,

A terrorist attack by Hamas. How is that reported out in the book? Talk a little bit about how your coverage on that. Well, I mean, what what happens? I mean, it's with one of the serious, serious moments. But specifically, what do you want to know?

I'm just curious about like how that relationship has been fraught and how, how they've handled dealing with Putin, who always has a sort of, you know, he's got his, his domestic political concerns and his, and his approach to these things. There's certainly a different chemistry between Biden and Netanyahu than there was between Trump and Netanyahu. And I don't mean that Biden is anti-Israel. I don't think he's anti-Israel at all. I'm just curious, like,

Like they had to handle him in ways because he Netanyahu had had a free reign under Trump. So I'm just curious, like what, how, how they handled Netanyahu as we went forward. Well, as the, the approach is, you know, Netanyahu is in the middle East. If you're weak, you're roadkill. So they're going to be tough. And they're getting, I, I, I think the Biden approach is, is,

quite strong in two ways. It is pro-Israel, but not pro-Netanyahu. And there is, I quote very vividly, you know, privately, President Biden says that Netanyahu is a effing liar. And at one point, he even says 18 of the 19 people

People who work for Netanyahu are effing liars. So there's the personal relationship is disintegrated. But Biden realizes in his national security team, realize how important it is to make sure that Israel survives. And that's sending billions of dollars of support to,

You know, it's one of these issues you can't walk away from, and they are not. It seems like Biden has been one of the first presidents in a while who's been extremely blunt with Netanyahu or extremely direct with him in ways that where he wasn't suborned or putting, you know, he was definitely putting Netanyahu in a context of a broader American security framework, not just

Israel as a sort of special carve out. Yeah. And look, look, he is he is I mean, what we need to know, if I may jump to all of this, that what's happened here is and

Because Trump's on the ballot now. Yep. We've all seen this. And that the former aides and captain officers to Trump have publicly said he should not be president, even shouldn't be on the ballot. Right. Now, our former Vice President Pence, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper,

Former JCS chairman Mark Milley, who's just just said that that Trump is the most dangerous person around anywhere. And what's what the strategic situation has really been the danger of inner inadvertent escalation, that this goes out of control.

That was sort of the segue I wanted to make next was, you also have, I mean, the gigantic newsmaking out of this book has come from, you know, the folks like Milley, the folks like Kelly, the folks like all these people around Trump during his administration who are now refusing to support him for president.

because of his character. The unprecedented nature of this, I mean, you've written so many of these histories of White Houses in conflict and White Houses in crisis and White Houses that do have push and pull inside of people. This is truly an unprecedented read because having read everything you've written, there's never a moment in my memory where so many people

were ringing the alarm bell so loudly in the wake of an administration who had been in that White House. Some people took shots at Bush after the Gulf War, all that, or the Iraq War, all that fine. But this is something, the consistency of their warnings, the stridency of their warnings really was a remarkable element of this.

Yes. And it's because Trump, you never know. First of all, Trump does not operate with a plan. And I mean, he may think he's got a plan, but it's really a bunch of random thoughts that happened to come up. He also does not have a current team.

You know, here you've got the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley. You know, I've done this military reporting for 50 years. Milley, the most respected. No question. I mean, no question. And what does he say about Trump? Trump is the most dangerous person.

Trump is a fascist to the core. I mean, I think I think that the day Mark Milley walked into Lafayette Park with Trump, I think something changed in Mark Milley. And I think that may have been was that the day he realized just what what this guy was when when Trump was like, why can't we shoot the civilians?

Well, I think at that moment there was a change, an escalation of the thinking and the danger. But they knew the danger because they sat there and time and time again,

They had to put the clamps on what Trump might do or what he was threatening to do. I mean, he was threatening and really wanted to use the U.S. military to deal with uprisings or protests in the United States. I mean, when I first learned about that, I thought, my God, what's happened? And what has happened?

I can't walk away from this, from in this danger. Millie is the most dangerous person. He's got a lot of support. And if I may say his supporters need to really look at.

what he's done, what he stands for, and this idea you have a team of people who worked for him who now are not just passive, but actively opposed to him. The core understanding I have is Trump doesn't understand the presidency, doesn't understand responsibilities, and it's

tragic for this country. And the idea that he might be moving into the Oval Office again would make everyone tremble, even his supporters, because his supporters know the extreme measures he would take. When launching a new product, finding the right revenue model can be just as important as the product itself.

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You know, you've covered every president since Nixon. And I look at Nixon and Trump as the two most transgressive presidents of our lifetimes. They're the two presidents who strained the system to the breaking point. But I look back now, and Nixon was like an amateur at a lot of this. The intent of Trump in a second term that he's laying out for everybody right away and the warnings all these folks are giving is

There is nothing, there's no precedent for the moment we're in right now. There's nothing ever like this in American history, the level of the danger we face if he returns to power. There's no question about that. But Nixon was a danger, a massive lawbreaker. And as we look at his secret tape recordings that come out now, I mean, this was a...

thief executive who was head of the criminal enterprise to get himself reelected and to squash his enemies, the people who were on the other side. So this is real. And I think what's important is

One element is important that people who support Trump look at, do we want the country where the chief executive will say, ah, now I've got all of this power. And so I'm going to exercise it, not in the interest of the public or the national security, but in my own political interest.

That strikes me that one thing that, you know, we are we do have two players in your book who are on the ballot, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. What is your she came into Washington without any sort of foreign policy experience per se. Talk to us about what you learned about her in reporting this book.

That's a great question. There is a meeting July 25th, just a couple of months ago, that she has with Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister at Israel. And it's in the ceremonial office of the vice president that looks over at the White House and the West Wing.

And in that meeting, I have extensive notes. And she says to Netanyahu, I'm disturbed by the humanitarian situation in Gaza. It's unconscionable. People are starving.

4,000 people per toilet in Western Gaza. And she goes on and kind of lays out a real hard line on this and says, you know, it's a reasonable meeting. It's friendly in a way, those making her case. And

if you read those two or three pages, you really see her kind of drawing some lines, but not being hostile to Netanyahu. But then she goes out at the press briefing publicly and criticizes publicly Israel's treatment of civilians in Gaza, and

And we cannot look away at the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. I will not be silent as vice president.

She's been going to president school under Biden. But Biden, what's so interesting is we know Biden served as vice president to Obama and there was tensions and Biden had his view was very strong about the president controlling the military. And

said in one of the interviews I did with him when he was vice president, that the military doesn't F with me. In other words, he believes that the commander in chief has to be the commander in chief. And he's doing precisely that. And Harris is seen and in the same way has been

People don't realize how tough she is. Is she perfect? Is she, you know, she made some mistakes and so forth. She gets it. She gets what's the it? The Constitution, the system of laws, the system of a administration, president, vice president, cabinet officers system.

deciding what the policy is. And it's tough.

It is tough. And it's one of those things that I think, you know, a great phrase you just see at president school where, and look, Biden is one of the most experienced hands in Washington. He's been around forever. He's been around since the 1970s in office, you know, in consequential roles in the Senate, vice president for eight years, president now for four. So she has had somebody who she could watch, who I think understands how to operate in Washington and operate

with an administration that is built around the Constitution, not around the chaos. And I think that's, it's interesting to me that she seems, I can start to see the outlines of how she'll govern, even how she's campaigning. You know, she is not, she is not chaotic. She is systematic. She is methodical. And she approaches things, I think, in a way that will rebuild some of the institutional strength that we're missing under Trump.

Yes. And just for instance, staff matters, right? Oh, yeah. The national security advisor named Philip Gordon, who is steeped in White House and State Department and national security issues. This is somebody you...

look at and say, okay, you know, she has picked somebody in this important role who has experience in authority. You look at Donald Trump and who's Donald Trump's national security advisor? Kid Mouth. Right. I mean, never comes out whenever he wants. It's all impulse. Yeah.

But it's impulse unconnected to the goal of furthering a large national security purpose. Look,

People who support Trump need to think about, need to think hard about how you create a national security team, how you put together an organization, a system of warnings and debate. And Harris has learned. She's seen Biden do this from years before.

of writing and studying Donald Trump. Trump cannot learn. And learning is not, it's all about what he, I mean, just look at that rally last night at Madison Square Garden. Repulsive. Terrible. I mean, but it's not just repulsive. It's something he wants. He thinks somehow he,

Politics is just another entry into the sports arena. And it's not right. It is.

What a president says matters. What a president does matters even more. And I don't think he ever understood that. I don't think that was ever connected in his mind that it was anything more than like, how do I look good today? How do I feel? How do I feel validated today? He missed the he never had president school. Let's put it that. Well, that's right. And it's again, go if the my wife's.

Elsa Walsh, who worked for The Washington Post, was a staff writer for The New Yorker for years, said, you know what? One of the things you need to think about is in national security, you are acting, asking someone to be involved.

Look out for large interests, national interest. There is such a thing as national interest. And ask yourself if you were a parent, say, I want to hire somebody to look after my child. And you call people who have who were on the list to maybe help.

be the person who looks out for your child and you call people and they say, oh, no, absolutely not. Do not hire a person. That's what all these people are doing will work for for Trump. I mean, I it's not.

A secret. I know some of these people. I've talked with them. I've had extensive interviews with them. Sure. Somebody like General Mattis, who was defense secretary. I mean, I've known 16 defense secretaries, believe it or not. And Mattis is one of the most experienced, one of the soundest. No question.

not what your politics are or what it is. He understands he was a general. He understands the responsibilities of protecting the country. And like that, who worked with Trump says, no, cannot trust him. He is like General Milley says, the worst possible person for the job.

I think I think you're you're reporting on on Trump's former national security folks and others who have said no and absolutely no. And I'll know is one of the most important parts of this book. It is really something. And it's not. I know the Trump supporters, his fans are trying to say, oh, they're just all disgruntled employees. But the question is not.

Did one guy get pissed off? This is everyone with, well, I mean, maybe one or two are still around Trump, you know, the Mike Rogers types or whoever, but everyone who is a professional, I mean, General Mattis is a deeply read, deeply knowledgeable, combat hardened general. He is somebody who has read more history than you and I had combined. He, the guys that have never met anybody who's a more obsessive reader of history than Jim Mattis.

He knows this. They know these lessons. General Milley, the same way. All of them have come to the conclusion that this guy is too dangerous to be back in the Oval Office or anywhere near it. So I think that lesson is incredibly important. I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. I have one more question for you. Sure.

The I know editorial and reporting at the Post have always been a separate separate universes, but it does seem like you're you're the great the great institution that I've loved my whole life. Been reading the Post since I went to college at GW in 1982 is in a moment of crisis over this over declining to to endorse in this race. Can you talk to us anything about that or is that something we don't we can't go into?

Well, I voiced my objection, Carl Bernstein, my Watergate reporting partner, and I put out a statement. I remember during Watergate, if I may say this, when Carl and I were doing our reporting, the editorial page was tough on Nixon. Sure. Supported reporting. Even the cartoonist, Herblock. Herblock, right. Right.

And when it came around to awarding prizes, they awarded the Pulitzer Prize to the Washington Post for our reporting for the editorials and the verb block cartoon. That's right. I had forgotten that. Look, the message was empirical. The

the message was, let's look at what Nixon has done and the hidden secret law breaking of Nixon. And there can be harmony and the reality. And in the case of Trump, the work I've done, the work, the Washington Post. Extraordinary. Yeah. It's been exactly the,

the job that everyone's hired for. Lots of people will 20 years from now go back and look at it and say, it was so obvious there was no ambiguity. And there we are. We stand with the empirical evidence.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Bob Woodward, I want to thank you so much, sir, for coming on the air today. Folks, the book is War by Bob Woodward. It is an amazing history of the last few years of how Joe Biden has handled the moment that Donald Trump left this country in and how we're facing a moment where Trump may return and the dangers that are that are extended thereof. Thank you again, Bob. We'll talk to you again soon. Thank you. Good luck.

The Lincoln Project Podcast is a Lincoln Project production. Executive produced by Whitney Hayes, Finn Howe, and Joseph Werner-Cheney. Produced and edited by Whitney Hayes and Jeff Taylor. And good luck.