Truth and Trump

Truth and Trump

I recently viewed and listened to a fascinating interview, conducted in Toronto, Canada, with Bob Woodward. For those of you who don’t know who he is, please “Google” him. I have followed his career since his days as an almost cub reporter for the Washington Post when, together with Carl Bernstein, he exposed President Richard Nixon’s crimes in the so-called “Watergate Affair.”

The video I am recommending is on Youtube and is titled “Truth and Trump: An Evening with Bob Woodward | TVO Today Live.” It’s a relatively long video, but in it Woodward reveals some very interesting information and thoughts about not only Donald Trump but also Richard Nixon.

Woodward is not a partisan in politics. He is one journalist of a dying breed who is unstained by scandal or ideological commitments. He reminds me of Walter Cronkite of old, but the two are, of course, very different in that Cronkite was a news reporter while Woodward is and has been an investigative journalist.

So why is this video important? Woodward, as many already know (but I am keeping in mind my readers outside the U.S.), was given very direct access to Trump during his presidency. He spent many hours with Trump, mostly one-on-one, and there are recordings of their conversations. The result was a book by Woodward based on his very lengthy and in depth conversations with the president. Only Trump has accused Woodward of deceiving his readers. As Woodward notes, however, all of the conversations were recorded except a few times when Trump asked him to turn off the recording device.

Even if you have read the book Woodward wrote, based on these extensive conversations with Trump, you may be enlightened, shocked, angered, and/or smugly satisfied by this interview.

Personally, I am very impressed with Woodward as an investigative journalist and have been since the early 1970s.

Like many American conservative Christians I grew up in a home that was, in the 1960s especially, extremely political. I remember many anti-communist books and magazines including “literature” made by the supporters of Senator McCarthy and the anti-communist congressional committee he headed up. My parents admired FBI director Hoover and Richard Nixon. My stepmother was virulently anti-communist to the point of believing in conspiracy theories. For example, when Kennedy was elected president she loudly predicted that the pope would rule America and that there would never again be a non-Catholic president. She refused to believe that there was real tension between the Soviet Union and China and declared that it was a communist lie to seduce America and “the free world” into believing that a communist take over was not in the planning. She fully supported America’s involvement in the Vietnam War and considered war protesters traitors. Then, when the crimes of Watergate were revealed and Nixon voluntarily resigned the presidency, she declared that it was all a communist conspiracy and that Nixon was innocent and being framed by communists within the U.S. government. By that time I was old enough to doubt what I heard at home and think for myself.

That was what I had to overcome and break free from and breaking free from it, and leaving Pentecostalism, was extremely difficult because both virulent anti-communism of that kind (think Billy James Hargis) and passionate Pentecostalism (we were the only Spirit-filled Christians) were part and parcel of my family, including many of my in-laws and extended relatives. Thinking differently, and letting my different thoughts be known (e.g., that the real threat to America was fascism, not communism) made me an outsider.

Bob Woodward was one individual who, although I never met him, impressed me as an independent thinker, not ideologically driven, but suspicious of power and willing to risk his career and reputation to expose power’s abuses in the United States and elsewhere.

This video interview (“Truth and Trump: An Evening with Bob Woodward | TVO Today Live”) is especially interesting, of nothing else, because, and nobody I now denies this, for whatever reason, Trump gave Woodward frequent and lengthy access to him and revealed things to him directly that are not classified in any way but are nevertheless very telling about Trump’s ideas about himself and others he liked and disliked and why.

Now, know this: I personally, speaking only for myself, am not a fan of President Biden or the Democratic Party. I am a fan of Bob Woodward and believe we need many more journalists like him. I would like to see him do the same with Biden as he did with Trump, but Trump invited him to do it. Biden would have to invite him to do it and give him the same access Trump gave him. A big question that Woodward himself cannot answer is why Trump gave him such direct, frequent and honest access to himself, not only as president but as a person.

Very interestingly, Woodward says in the interview that he thinks it is very possible that Trump will re-win the White House in 2024. He tells some stories about encounters with Trump supporters and why he is likely to win if nothing prevents his election (such as illness).

I watched former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s announcement of her candidacy for the Republican nomination for the presidency. I have to say she has guts. I am not a fan, but I agree with her that it’s time for “new blood” in government. The oldsters need to step aside and let a new generation lead. And I hope our next president will be a woman because we’ve never had a woman president and it’s time we did.

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