RAGE

Epilogue

by Bob Woodward

"After I finished reporting for this book on President Trump, I felt weariness. The country was in real turmoil. The virus was out of control. The economy was in crisis with more than 40 million out of work. A powerful reckoning on racism and inequality was upon us. There seemed to be no end in sight, and certainly no clear path to get there.

"I thought back to the conversation with Trump on February 7 when he mentioned the 'dynamite behind every door,' the unexpected explosion that could change everything. He was apparently thinking about some external event that would affect the Trump presidency.

"But now, I've come to the conclusion that the 'dynamite behind the door' was in plain sight. It was Trump himself. The oversized personality. The failure to organize. The lack of discipline. The lack of trust in others he had picked, in experts. The undermining or the attempted undermining of so many American institutions. The failure to be a calming, healing voice. The unwillingness to acknowledge error. The failure to do his homework. To extend the olive branch. To listen carefully to others. To craft a plan.

"Mattis, Tillerson and Coats are all conservatives or apolitical people who wanted to help him and the country. Imperfect men who answered the call to public service. They were not the deep state. Yet each departed with cruel words from their leader. They concluded that Trump was an unstable threat to their country. Think about that for a moment: The top national security leaders thought the president of the United States was a danger to the country.

"Trump said the intelligence people needed to go back to school. The generals were stupid. The media was fake news. Trump had spent so many years undermining people who challenged him. Not only his opponents but those who worked for him and for the American public.

"And here was the problem: By undermining so many others not only had he shaken confidence in them but he had shaken confidence in himself. This was particularly apparent when the country most needed to feel the government knew what it was doing in an unprecedented health crisis.

'Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, maybe had it more right than he knew when he said understanding Trump meant understanding Alice in Wonderland.

"Trump talked a lot. Almost incessantly. So much that he weakened the microphone of the presidency and the bully pulpit, and too many people no longer trusted what he said. Half or more of the country seemed to be in a perpetual rage about him, and he seemed to enjoy it.

"I think of Robert Redfield knowing that the virus fight would not be merely six months or a year, it would be two to three years. Of Trump repeatedly saying the virus would disappear or blow away. And of the enormous wearing down of public health officials to not stray too far from the president's message.

"I close out this book with a belief that almost anything can happen in the Trump presidency, anything. Lots could get better or worse or much worse. It is unlikely lots could get much better. For the moment, in the middle of the summer, the virus, the economy, and the internal political divisions define Trump. The intensity of those divisions is at its height.

"The concentration of power in the presidency has been growing for decades and the power of the president might be at an all-time high under Trump. Trump uses it especially in dominating the media.

"Trump has talked very tough, often in a way that unsettles even his supporters. But he has not imposed martial law or suspended the Constitution, despite predictions of his opponents. He and his attorney general, William Barr, have several times challenged the traditional rule of law. Unnecessarily, in my view. Using the justice system to reward friends and pay back enemies is petty and Nixonian. Constitutional government might seem wobbly at times, and that could change overnight. Still, democracy has held.

"But leadership has failed. What did Trump want to accomplish? What were his goals? Too often he seemed not to know himself. Decision by tweet, often without warning to those charged with executing his policies, was one of the biggest sticks of dynamite behind the door.

"His relationship and letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un outlined in detail here were not by the foreign policy establishment playbook. But as Trump says repeatedly we had no war. That was an achievement. Diplomacy should always be worth a try. It may have been worth it. Where it goes next is one of the imponderables of the Trump era. Is Trump's and Kim's mutual pledge of fealty—the 'fantasy film'—sustainable as Kim is more threatening? 'We'll see,' as Trump says all the time.

"The shadowy presence of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is another imponderable. Highly competent but often shockingly misguided in his assessments, Kushner's role is jarring. Was there no one else to act as chief of staff? Trump's friends are mostly others with money or social standing. Or those who liked to talk on the phone at night. Was there no real friend who shared Trump's interest in governing who could help and be called to service?

"Senator Lindsey Graham, Trump's First Friend in the Senate, has often been portrayed as embarrassingly and shamelessly subservient to the president, but actually at times provided wise counsel, urging Trump to take a strategic view.

"On January 28, 2020, when Trump's national security adviser and his deputy warned Trump that the virus would be—not might be, but would be—the biggest national security threat to his presidency, the leadership clock had to be reset. It was a detailed forecast, supported by evidence and experience that unfortunately turned out to be correct. Presidents are the executive branch. There was a duty to warn. To listen, to plan, and to take care.

"For a long time Trump hedged, as did others, and said the virus is worrisome but not yet, not now. There were good reasons to ride both horses, but there should have been more consistent and courageous outspokenness. Leading is almost always risky.

"The virus, the 'plague,' as Trump calls it, put the United States and the world in economic turmoil that may not be just a recession, but a depression. It is a genuine financial crisis, putting tens of millions out of work. Trump's solution is to try to re-create what he believes is the economic miracle he created in the pre-virus time. Democrats, Republicans and Trump did agree to spending at least $2.2 trillion on recovery, which will create its own future problems with growing deficits. The human cost has been almost unimaginable, with more than 130,000 Americans killed by the virus by July and no real end in sight.

"The deep-seated hatreds of American politics flourished in the Trump years. He stoked them, and did not make concerted efforts to bring the country together. Nor did the Democrats. Trump felt deeply wronged by the Democrats who felt deeply wronged by Trump. The walls between them only grew higher and thicker.

"My 17 interviews with Trump presented a challenge. He denounced Fear, my first book on him, as untrue, a 'scam' and a 'joke,' calling me a 'Dem operative.' Several of those closest to him told him that the book was true, and Lindsey Graham told him that I would not put words in his mouth and would report as accurately as possible.

"Trump decided, for reasons that are not clear to me, that he would cooperate. To his mind, he would become a reliable source. He is reliable at times, completely unreliable at others, and often mixed. I have tried to guide the reader as best I can. But the interviews show he vacillated, prevaricated and at times dodged his role as leader of the country despite his 'I alone can fix it' rhetoric.

"As America and the world know, Trump is an overpowering presence. He loves spectacle.

"Trump is a living paradox, capable of being friendly and appealing. He can also be savage and his treatment of people is often almost unbelievable.

"In a time of crisis, the operational is much more important than the political or the personal. For tens of millions the optimistic American story has turned to a nightmare.

"My wife, Elsa Walsh, who had worked for years as a reporter for The Washington Post and then as a staff writer for The New Yorker, and I spent endless hours sifting through the story of the Trump presidency, talking intensely for the last year. What was the remedy, the course that could have been taken? we asked. Was there a way to do better?

"Elsa suggested looking at a previous president who wanted to speak directly to the American people, unfiltered through the media, not just during troubling times but during a major crisis. The model was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Over his 12 years as president, FDR gave 30 fireside chats. His aides and the public often clamored for more. FDR said no. It was important to limit his talks to the major events and to make them exceptional. He also said they were hard work, often requiring him to prepare personally for days.

"The evening radio addresses concerned the toughest issues facing the country. In a calm and reassuring voice, he explained what the problem was, what the government was doing about it, and what was expected of the people.

"Often the message was grim. Two days after Japan's December 7, 1941, surprise bombing attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR spoke to the nation. 'We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories” - the changing fortunes of war. So far, the news has been all bad. We have suffered a serious setback.' He added, 'It will not only be a long war, it will be a hard war.' It was a question of survival. 'We are now fighting to maintain our right to live among our world neighbors in freedom and common decency.'

"FDR invited the American people in. 'We are all in it—all the way. Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history.' Japan had inflicted serious damage and the casualty lists would be long. Seven-day weeks in every war industry would be required.

“'On the road ahead there lies hard work—grueling work, every day and night, every hour and every minute.' And sacrifice, which was a 'privilege.'

"Japan was allied with the fascist powers of Germany and Italy. FDR called for a systematic 'grand strategy.'

"A few months later in another fireside chat he asked Americans to pull out a world map to follow along with him as he described why the country needed to fight beyond American's borders. 'Your government has unmistakable confidence in your ability to hear the worst, without flinching or losing heart.'

"For nearly 50 years, I have written about nine presidents from Nixon to Trump—20 percent of the 45 U.S. presidents. A president must be willing to share the worst with the people, the bad news with the good. All presidents have a large obligation to inform, warn, protect, to define goals and the true national interest. It should be a truth-telling response to the world, especially in crisis. Trump has, instead, enshrined personal impulse as a governing principle of his presidency.

"When his performance as president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion: Trump is the wrong man for the job."

© Simon & Schuster 2020