Why Bob Woodward worries about Trump's America
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What would Bob Woodward think? That's the question I've been asking myself for weeks since President Trump took office for a second time. Bob Woodward, renowned Washington Post journalist who worked with Carl Bernstein to investigate and uncover the Watergate scandal. President Richard Nixon became the first and only U.S. president to resign from office.

In the 50 years since Watergate, Bob Woodward has continued to report on U.S. presidents. He's written books about the last 10, and he wrote three bestsellers about President Trump. And so I've been thinking, he had a front row seat to the massive transformations in our federal government following Watergate. And he spent hours talking to Trump when he was writing those books. I went to his house last week to ask him this question.

What does he make of President Trump's approach to the presidency this time? This is Post Reports. I'm Colby Ekowitz. It's Friday, March 28th. Two quick notes. We spoke with Bob before the news of the Signal Group chat, so that won't be in our conversation. And also, if you're listening to this conversation, you can also watch it. It's on YouTube, and the link to that is in our show notes. So here it is, my conversation with Bob Woodward.

Bob, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. So I want to start by playing something that I'm sure you've heard many times, but let's just take a listen. Sure. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. As you well know, that was Gerald Ford in the summer of 1974. I wonder, listening to that now, how that makes you feel, what you think hearing those words. Wow, there's 50...

years of reflection and reporting for the Washington Post and for endless books. It was a very important time in American history, and a lot of people have kind of used it for political purposes one way or another, but

The reality was that Nixon resigned because of Watergate. And you say used it for political purposes. In what way?

Well, in the way of saying that, look, Nixon was a criminal or distorting it and saying, no, Nixon was railroaded out of office by a very aggressive press and by Democrats. And we now know from the tapes that

that established conclusively that Nixon was a criminal. When Gerald Ford says, you know, we're a great republic, we're a government of laws and not men...

Do you think that's still true right now in this moment? It seems less so. There's no, I mean, it is a very, very different time, obviously, because this is 50 years of history. I went back and got some notes. Great. And I want to be very precise about this because...

There were laws and changes that took place after 1974 when Nixon resigned. And one of them was a 10-year term for the FBI director. The other was putting inspector generals in place in all of the agencies. And another was a very rigorous...

series of restraints on campaign contributions and expenditures. But the inspector generals have been wiped out.

by Trump. In a practical sense, the limit on campaign contributions and expenditures is gone because of the political action committees and the concentration of political money, which inevitably, as we know, corrupting. One of the things many of the founders of

said is that the Constitution is an experiment. It's continually evolving and

changing and being tested, frankly. And there's no bigger test of the Constitution than Trump. So you brought up all the things that Trump has done to kind of dismantle what happened after Watergate. And I've been thinking, what is going through Bob Woodward's mind right now? And that was the question that led us here. So what is going through your mind as you watch Trump fire inspector generals, you know, try to fire the head of the government ethics office?

And the other things that you mentioned. And take control in a very authoritarian way of the government and the traditions of democracy. Right. So what have you been thinking? Well, I'm worried. I think everyone, even those who support it, should be worried because it's done offline, so much of it. It is Trump just asserting himself publicly.

taking on the role of the courts, taking on the role of Congress. And the courts in Congress still have their power. And so we are entering a moment where there is going to be a clash of those traditions and laws and Trump's will. One big difference that I've been thinking about is that

Nixon resigned when his party turned against him, when they couldn't, when the Republicans in Congress weren't going to defend him any longer. And yet Trump seems to have all of the Republicans in Congress supporting him. I mean, what is it going to take to put a check on the executive office?

If the Republicans in Congress aren't willing to do that. Well, the Republicans have the majority and they are supportive of Trump and what he's doing at this point. I think it will come a point where Republicans are going to say, is there too much assertion of power by Trump? What do you think it'll take?

Well, what's nice— Because there's been a lot already. That's why I like journalism. We don't have to do the future. We do what's happening and what happened. And who knows? I certainly—but there is a catastrophic—

confrontation and clash building right now. So, Bob, you've written three books on President Trump. You've spent more time with him than most. What are the impressions of him that maybe people don't know? What did you learn about him during all the time that you spent with him? Well, in one of my interviews with him, we're talking about power, which, of course, is an important issue in

in politics, in any institution. And Trump said, real power is, I hate to use the word, but the word is fear. And he uses, he scares people. Fear is a method, and the first book I did on him uses that method.

One word title, fear, because it's a method and it's Trump's practice. He uses it with the electorate, too. He scares people with his rhetoric about immigrants and Democrats and a deep state. But how else does he use fear?

Well, he uses it personally. He will call people and berate them. I mean, these days there are lots of reports of Trump calling Republicans and say, get on board with what I am doing and

What I'm pushing. And they're really just that afraid of him. Well, they're afraid of him and they also, lots of them agree with him. Knowing him as well as you know him, when he won re-election...

in November, what did you think was going to happen in the second term? Or what were you worried about happening in this second term? Well, first of all, he had four years of not being president. He lost to Joe Biden. And these were years for him to kind of

clean his guns, get the ammunition in line. And what he's done and the push and the activism, clearly those four years were spent some way planning and laying out, okay, what am I going to do when I get back in power? So it's very organized work.

Lots of executive orders, lots of doing what Trump wants rather than, I would argue, what the law says. Yeah. I mean, have you...

Are you surprised by how quickly it's all happened? I mean, he's only been in office now a little over two months. But when you have four years to plan, in a way, yes, it's happening quickly. But this is an implementation of a strategy of...

implementing his will. Is that a strategy you feel like he laid out for you when you were interviewing him? Like, did you know to the extent, obviously he wants power and he operates through fear, but did you know to the extent that he would push for power in the ways that he has? No. And quite honestly, I was not sure after he lost in 2020. Yeah.

that there would be a comeback. And he has staged a comeback, political comeback, very successfully. What does that say about where America is right now? Well, America is, we all know, is so divided, and it's narrowly divided, but Trump,

And the Republicans control not only the presidency, but the Congress. And the question is going to be, and it's surfacing daily, what are the courts going to do? And there is so many of these issues are in the courts. Again, it's we don't know that future. You mentioned how divided we are as a nation right now.

Compare this America to the America 50 years ago when Watergate happened. Easier to describe the creation of the universe. I mean, there's obviously a big difference. What happened 50 years ago...

is there was a Republican Party that was independent of President Nixon. And the Republican Party eventually led by Barry Goldwater, the conservative senator from Arizona, to hold Nixon accountable. And it was a very...

a stunning assertion of congressional and Republican power. And there's a meeting I've described in my books where

met with the Republican leadership and Barry Goldwater. And Nixon, this is at a point where he was going to be impeached, charged, and the question was what would happen in a Senate trial. And he would need more than one-third to make sure he was not impeached, not thrown out of office, requiring two-thirds. And

In a discussion interview with Goldwater, Goldwater recounted how he and the Republican leaders went to Nixon and Nixon said, well, what's going to happen in a Senate trial? And Goldwater said, Mr. President,

You have only five votes, and one of them is not mine. And the next day, Nixon announced he was resigning. We saw President Trump go through two impeachments that obviously didn't result in him getting charged by the Senate. Could it happen today? Again, you know, we're trying, and I think we get, those of us in the news media get

trap ourselves by trying to predict the future and say, this is going to happen, or this is likely, or this is unlikely. We're in very fluid times. Yeah. So who knows? I don't, for sure. I mean, look at what he's asserting himself now, all these executive orders. I mean, he has stood his ground and said, this is what I'm going to do.

I am shrinking. He and Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, his sidekick, are cutting the government. And look at what we are seeing. I mean, in some cases, it's done, as people have said, with the chainsaw. And we know from

Our personal lives or businesses that when you have to cut, that's a really tricky undertaking. And you need to very carefully spell out what you're going to do and do it very slowly and be very certain that the impact is that they're not secondary effects.

that you trigger with and look at what's going on now, I think it's one of the most dangerous times this country has ever faced. After the break, what Bob Woodward thinks Trump's end goal could be. And I ask him about the president's relationship with journalists. We'll be right back.

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What do you think Trump's end goal is in all of this, in the sledgehammering the government, putting tariffs on our allies like Canada? What is his big end goal as president? Well, his end goal is, and it looks like he wants to destroy the economy. And that is a very dangerous undertaking. I mean, he states everything.

The motive is very positive, but look at what people are going through, having very negative impact. Yeah. I...

Went through some notes, if I may, and give an example here. I want to go back seven years to 2018. Some reporting I did. It's January 2018. Trump is in the Oval Office with his economic advisors. Now, at this moment, Trump wanted tariffs.

like he wants right now in 2025. And his chief economic advisor in the White House was Gary Cohen. And Cohen is somebody who'd been president of Goldman Sachs, had been at that firm for 27 years. And if a Republican president needed an economic advisor, Gary Cohen would.

was the person to do that. And Trump says, I want tariffs. Seven years ago. And Cohen says tariffs risk roiling the economy and jeopardizing the stock market gains. And he says, as economists now say, that tariffs are a tax.

on American consumers. He's quite right. So Trump doesn't like this and says to Cohen, you're a globalist. Now, this is a term we don't hear these days, but globalist is somebody who takes into account the international world.

repercussions of decisions. And Trump says to Cohen, I don't care what you think anymore, Gare. And he shoos, this is in the Oval, shoos him out of the meeting and go sit on the couch. You're almost being disciplined. In other words, Trump is thinking about the country only. Wants to rip it out of the

international frame that we exist in. And he doesn't have people like Gary Cohn around him this time to try to rein him in. Yeah. I mean, how dangerous is that that you don't even have, it doesn't appear that there are people in the Oval Office this time around pushing back in that way? Not that we know of, and I think that's intentional. Yeah. Somebody in the White House gave me what Trump had written out

in his own hand. Trade is bad. Now this reflects a view that, oh, it's all about only the United States and trade is somehow a poison. Trade is necessary. Trade is good. But here is Trump saying trade is bad. Uh,

Trade is inevitable and serves many purposes of many Americans. And the idea that we would eliminate trade and isolate ourselves is preposterous. How worried should journalists be about retribution compared to maybe what you faced during the Nixon era? Yeah.

by the White House, by the Trump administration. Well, Trump's made it clear. He calls the journalists that he doesn't like fake news. Yeah. And we still have the First Amendment

And I think the courts will uphold that. I think the courts, it's in the Constitution. It's part of the tradition. And I know as a journalist, I'm glad it's there. I think it's very important. I think people are really worried about the guardrails of the Constitution and whether they'll hold back.

Well, I don't look... The word guardrails, I mean, the Constitution isn't a guardrail. It's an absolute. This is who we are. This is what we hold sacred. And...

Certainly one of those is the First Amendment, is freedom of expression. So we can still operate as journalists. I think we need to talk about myself, work harder, and really dig in and try to...

break into it. I mean, 50 years ago in the Nixon era, Carl Bernstein and I were able to break into it. We were young, had the full support of the Washington Post, Catherine Graham, the owner, Ben Bradley, the editor. I think the Post reporters have that same support now. You do think that? I do. Okay. But there are

are some constraints being put on. I don't see...

that, I mean, has had an impact on the opinion side. I don't see that it has curtailed coverage on the news side, but we'll see. Yeah. Trump said the other day, Jeff Bezos is doing a real job with the Washington Post. I don't know what that means, but I don't know how you take that. Well, I guess he likes some of it, Trump does. Yeah.

But I think it's been very aggressive and very sound. And I know of no constraints being put on the news side by owners. But, you know, that will come clearer with time. Yeah, hopefully it stays that way.

Yes. So Bob, are there other conversations that you had with Trump while you were reporting on him that kind of illuminate his view, his worldview, his personal view, how he runs the country? In 2020, in one of the interviews I did with Trump, he just said...

And I'm asking about the process and of how you make decisions. And he said, I get people, they come in with ideas, but the ideas are mine, Bob. The ideas are mine. Want to know something? Everything is mine. End quote. Everything is mine.

No, it's not. Holding the office of president is an honor, a great, a grave responsibility. And to think of it in personal terms is inevitable, but also what are the interests of the country? Bob, thank you so much for having us in your beautiful home. Thank you.

That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. Today's episode was produced by Sabi Robinson. It was edited by Renita Jablonski and Rina Flores and mixed by Sam Baer. Thanks to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Special thanks to our video colleagues, Zach Purser-Brown, David Bruns, Ross Godwin, Randolph Smith, Tom LeGrow, Dan Misch, Lauren Sachs, and Micah Gelman.

I'm Colby Echowitz. We'll be back Monday with more stories from The Washington Post. ♪

And now, a next-level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows, and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day. You've got AT&T 5G, so you're fully confident. But the vendor isn't responding, and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease, so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device. Coverage not available everywhere. Learn more at att.com slash 5G network.