From December, 2019, to July, 2020, President Donald Trump granted unprecedented access to legendary Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward.

That access has since spawned a bestselling book—Rage—and proven that Trump privately knew how deadly the Coronavirus was. Yet, in public, he played down the lethality of the virus and attacked those who sought to take it seriously. 

On February 7, the following telephone interview occurred between Trump and Woodward:

Bob Woodward: And so, what was [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] saying yesterday? 

Donald Trump:  Oh, we were talking mostly about the virus, and I think he’s going to have it in good shape. But it’s a very tricky situation.

Woodward: Indeed, it is. 

Trump: It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?

Coronavirus

That damning confession has since appeared not only in Woodward’s book but on millions of TV and computer screens. Not only did Woodward tape record their conversations, but Trump knew he was taping them.

And those revelations have proven explosive for Trump—possibly enough to deny him a second term as President of the United States.

Yet a central question remains so far unanswered: Why did Trump give such access to a reporter—especially the reporter whose Watergate-related journalism proved instrumental in taking down President Richard M. Nixon?

Bob Woodward

There are at least three possible reasons why Trump dared to reveal to Woodward that he had blatantly lied to the American public.

Reason #1: Sheer hubris

The ancient Greeks defined “hubris” as excessive pride that led mere mortals “to think more than mortal thoughts.” 

As President, Trump has:

• Fired FBI director James Comey for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
• Threatened to cut off federal funding to cities that displeased him.
• Shut down the Federal Government to (unsuccessfully) get full funding for his “border wall” with Mexico.
• Attacked “the top people in the Pentagon” for not defending him against charges that he referred to soldiers killed in combat as “losers” and “suckers.”
• Openly embraced Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
• Attacked members of the Federal judiciary.
• Fired Inspectors General investigating corruption within his administration.

And earlier this year he was acquitted of impeachable offenses by a majority-Republican Senate.

So if Trump believed himself invulnerable when he confessed his lying to Woodward, he had good reason to do so.

Donald Trump

Reason #2: Trump thought he could recruit Woodward as his cheerleader

Just as Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, had a love/hate relationship with England, so, too, has Donald Trump had one with the American press—especially such major organs as The New York Times and The Washington Post. 

Trump has shamelessly used the media to promote his businesses, his TV show (“The Apprentice”) and, most of all, his Presidency. But he has bristled when the press reports scandals that have often been linked with his name.

So Trump may have thought he could win over Woodward—through the flattery of Presidential access. And with Woodward singing his praises, he would win a newfound respectability among the mainstream press which has so often savaged him.

In fact, he might have been encouraged to win over Woodward by no less than South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

Making that accusation is Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson.

“It was Lindsey Graham who helped convince Donald Trump to talk to Bob Woodward,” Carlson said during his show, Tucker Carlson Tonight. “Lindsey Graham brokered that meeting. Lindsey Graham even sat in on the first interview between Bob Woodward and the President. How did that turn out?

“Bob Woodward dislikes Donald Trump, he’s been very clear about that. Woodward works for Jeff Bezos’ personal newspaper The Washington Post, which has made defeating Donald Trump its all-consuming mission.”

Reason #3:  Trump wanted to take down Woodward

Donald Trump has long seen himself as a tough guy.  

In 2011, at the National Achievers Congress in Sydney, Australia, he offered his audience this advice: “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.”

During the second debate of the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump vowed that, if elected, he would prosecute and  imprison his opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Days later, he threatened to imprison Clinton’s lawyers. 

So it’s entirely possible that he saw his interviews with Woodward as the verbal equivalent of a prizefight, with himself—of course—emerging as the heavyweight champ.

Whatever his reason for agreeing to those interviews, he undoubtedly regrets it now: “It’s another political hit job,” he said of the bestselling book in a September 9 press conference.

Then he turned to his “handling” of the Coronavirus pandemic: He did the best he could, he did better than anyone else would have, and his actions saved millions of lives compared to doing nothing at all.

On September 22, Coronavirus deaths in the United States topped 200,000.