c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> may not president trump is in atlanta, georgia talking about economic opportunities for black americans. watch live coverage at 2:40 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. it is also online@c-span .org or listen with the free c-span radio app. >> sunday night on q&a 2020 book prize finalist eric j dolan talks about his book, a curious sky which looks at the history of hurricane destruction in the u.s. >> asked this massive category four hurricane is barreling directly into galveston it was pushing before it in norma's wave, essentially, on the right-hand side of hurricane and an norma's amount of water and it was that amount of water with the waves crashing and tumbling on top of it that slammed into

galveston that day and essentially turned galveston into a lake. >> eric j dolan sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. >> training is not as bob woodward, authorrd of the new book, rage and washington post associate editor, mr. woodward, i want to begin with the headline in your newspaper, trump will not commit to peaceful transition could give us your insight after writing two books about the president on his comments yesterdayit. >> guest: well, it makes no sense for anybody, even him, but of course he thanks he can bully his way through on thisis and te information i have is it will be just a train wreck upon a train wreck at election or after election time and how do you count the vote or how do you make sure that there is a fair and square electionnd?

we are heading into another chapter on 73 of trump world and we are just we do have to watch it day by day, hour by hour. >> host: you spoke with the president 19 times for this book. how did it come about and how do you agree to talk with you. >> guest: i did a book in 2018, fear, on his first two years and he did not cooperate and i tried to talk to him and he regretted and denounced the book and said i was a democrat operative in some people close to him said by the way, the book is through and so the president when i wanted to do the second book said he would cooperate and i went into the oval office and took put my tape recorder downwn on the

resolute desk and said it is all on the record and i will record it all and the book will come out in september or october before the election and so he talked to him for nine hours and 41 minutes and called me at home at 10:00 o'clock or on the weekends or i could or i had the number where i could contact him so i guess what i would call a total universe orchard of his thinking about his job and the central issue of the virus, race relations and the economy, the sipping court and we were able to go down every avenue of america. it really is a look at him and he allowed me to push him and come back to questions and i

suspect he is not very happy now but that is what he said and that is what i was able to find out from my other reporting. >> host: what role does senator lindsey graham have in the president speaking to you? >> guest: apparently he told the president looked, he won't put words in your mouth and you'll get a straight shot and last week the president said hey, i said some great things in those interviews and on the book and in the book and i let him have his say entirely and so it is as close, i believe, having done the snow for 50 yearslo that you can ever come to as an outsider what was going on in the white house and the administration on every matter of importance.

>> host: this is your 20th book, mr. woodward. how do you know when the former officials are ready to talk? >> guest: well, you just keep -- the old way used to be go to their homes and knocked on the door at night with the virus, c you can't do that so you use the telephone as your entrée and people are home at night and you can get them on the phone sometimes and sometimes for extended periods of time and sometimes for very long interviews and central lesson for me is people like to talk, thank god. i think people are out there no matter what their politics or their secret shares as believers in the first amendment. >> host: we want to invite our viewers to join in on the conversation.

if you are supporting joe biden and senator harris dial in at (202)748-8000, if you support president trump and vice president depends 2(028)748-8001, undecided or support others 2,027,488,002 you right in the book your authors note that evelyn duffey insisted that everyone in this book gets of, including president trump and kept her eyes on the prize and worked tirelessly to seees t fulfilled. she says sits on variation for everything and every fact or nuance goes unchecked. tell us about this process. >> guest: there are my two assistants who, they were willing to come to my house and workom in their offices on my third floor when i have an office on that floor and my wife also walsh has an office in the tower and we were a team working

together wearing masks, being as careful as we could, exchanging drafts and doing transcripts of all the interviews with trump and with everyone else. also, we did not have to wear a mask with each other and we lived our lives but we lived in that bubble of trump world for ten weeks for both elsa and myself and the extraordinary time because we could get not only 12 but other cabinet officers and people in the white house and people close tohe the president. >> host: sophia is up first in the bronx supporting the former vice president. sophia, go ahead with mr. woodward. >> caller: thank you. thank you, mr. woodward. are you there? >> guest: yes, i am.

>> caller: okay. first i want to say this, 50 years the job you done and this was your most you must get a nobel prize because if we did not record him he would have denied so i voted for him and i one of the deportable's and i now see the last three weeks and all the people, my people going [inaudible] and [inaudible] even though he admitted in an interview, sir, that this is going to be bad, you understand, sir? i hope you get the nobel prize because somebody has to make it

clear that you are brilliant. if you did not record him, we would have and he would have denied or been chaos and thank you for listening. i hope you -- he will kill us. he will kill us, sir. i supported him and i am part of the deportable's. >> host: mr. woodward. >> guest: i mean, first of all, i recorded him with his permission. frankly, when the book came out i wasn't sure i would put out the audioss and my wife also walsh, cnn who got the book early they said you need to put out audios and i have done that a couple of times on books but only in a small way and they

said, no, it was the pincer move but between elsa and jamie to say no, you've got do this in the context was we know that people don't trust the media and people don't trust much and so being able to hear it with their own ears here president trump say these things and say to me that look, he's trying to downplay the virus and he doesn't want to cause a panic and the key to all of this and i start my book with this meeting on january 28 in the oval office when the national security team and the advisor robert o'brien told president trump about the and said this virus is going to be the biggest, not may

, is going to be the biggest national security threat through your to your presidency. they had worked in china and as a wall street journal reporter during the 2003 pandemic new that the chinese government lied all the time and he had sources in china and he was able to explain to president trump not that just trouble was coming but a major pandemic was coming because he had those contacts and those sources in china and the medical community who would stand up to the chinese and the chinese government and he said this is going to be like the 1918, 1918 spanish flu pandemic that killed

675,000 people in this country. >> host: carroll, royal oak, michigan, supporting the president. good morning. >> caller: hello. good morning. i am curious, mr. woodward, do you like the president as a person? [laughter] >> guest: you know, that -- >> host: hold on, hold on carolyn, go ahead. >> caller: you know, the president said go ahead, turn the machine on and to think you would ever get a democrat to do that? >> host: all right, carol. >> guest: yes, i have many, many times president obama, president clinton so it is a nonpartisan tape recorder, as i may say that and my approach is aggressively

nonpartisan and you asked a very good question atth the beginnin, joy like the president? he has, as you know, he can be very charming and he would let me push him and we would sometimes even joke about things that he knew and i knew that this is not a joking matter and every thing particularly the virus and so he has an appeal. my wife also walsh says well, you know, she listened in on some of these calls because i would put it on the speakerphone and i told president trump that in their wars some foul language and at one point president trump said, i don't want your wife to hear this, her pretty ears i think is his term. so, i was open and listening to him and we started these

interviews before the virus and we talked a great deal about the relationship with north korea and kim jong-un own and the north korean leader and i got the letters in the letter exchange between them and president trump told me and said look, we've not had a war and there was an expectation and maybe we were going to have a nuclear war with north korea and i thinkea and indeed i give him credit on this, not having a war and back in the 1960s after i got out of college i served five years in the u.s. navy as communications officer and this was during vietnam and i saw vietnam up close and the lies of vietnam and the horror of that war and so i give president

trump credit for avoiding a war with north korea. at the same time, relations between trump and kim jong-un own have broken down now and we don't know where it is going and lots of experts say they don't think trump handled it right. i am agnostic on that and say this is what he did and he's very emphatic with me in these interviews that it was a no war strategy and if you look over all the trump administrations, we've not had a new war and a lot of people expected we would have one. at the same time the relations with some countries, trump likes autocratic leaders and he talked to me about that quite openly and so he has picked leaders like vladimir putin and they

have a good relationship with him and with the crown prince of saudi arabia and his negotiation with kim jong-un own. anyway, the positive and the negatives are laid out. it's as best as i could. >> host: you right in the book about these letters between the north korean leader and the president which he calls love letters written you say the cia never figure it out conclusively who wrote and crafted letters to lutrump. we were masterpieces and the analysts marveled at the skills someone brought to finding the exact mixture of flattery while appealing to trump's sense of grandiosity and being center stage two history. >> guest: the letters are magnificent because there is from kim jong-un own reaches out for trump and says we know each other and can trust each other and we will be friends for each other and at one point he talks about i remember standing in

meeting with you and holding your excellency's hand and they pledged fealty toed each other s i say in the book. it ismo almost like the knightsf the round table and at the same time when kim jong will not lddeliver on his agreement to gt rid of his nuclear weapon trump pushed him and said no, look, you gave your word on this and you are not ready to make video and so the second meeting which was in hanoi, vietnam fell apart and we don't know where all of this is going. it's at. very dicey situation because as i report, kim jong-un has dozens, several dozens of

nuclear weapons that are probablyuc not big busters like some of the some of the weapons we have on our ballistic missile submarine but they are nuclear weapons and well concealed and well hidden and so it is a very real threat that we face from them. now, history will determine because as karl rove, who was george w. bush's political advisor and i remember once told me from oneon of my bush books i went up to see him in the white house and rove said we're talking about the iraq war and the afghan war and other issues and rove said look, everything

depends on outcomes in politics and i think that is true, the outcome of the relationship with north korea, we don't know where itit will end. >> host: let's go to coral in massachusetts, undecided in this election but go ahead, carl. >> caller: good money but thank you for c-span bid mr. woodward, i have seen you many times on television interviews and i read one of your books a long time ago. i forget the title of it but i'm sorry to say i lost a lot of respect for you after when the iraq war started right after it started many people realized it was based on a lie and you came out like a couple of years later with ars book about that and i thank you, were on msnbc if i remember correctly and to me you are just a johnny-come-lately. correct me if i am wrong but that is how i feel. >> guest: well, look, i wrote a

story for "the washington post" before the iraq war started and, which i quoted cia officials saying they do not have smoking gun intelligence that iraq has weapons of mass destruction. the government and the cia believed that they did but this official told me we don't have a smoking gun intelligence. i have faulted myself mightily for not understanding what i wrote in my own newspaper because when somebody says we don't have smoking gun intelligence that means they don't have a verifiable information and they are not sure and, quite frankly, i should have realized what i wrote but i wrote a number of books about the iraq war and the

third one was called state of denial in which i reported with documentation and all kinds of interviews that president bush, george w. bush at the time was not telling the truth to the american people about how bad the situation was in iraq. it had deteriorated in the years after the 2003 invasion. >> host: christopher. go ahead, mr. woodward. >> guest: no, i was just going to say the iraq war was really an important turning point. i have always said that i should have been more aggressive about it but i did report what happened internally and significantly the cia director

went to make a presentation to president bush about whether there are weapons of mass destruction and the president bush was doubted that the intelligence was that solid and george tenet stood up in the oval office and said, it's a slam dunk,sl mr. president and t is a slam dunk. and so that was the view at the highest level in the cia, as you may recall, colin powell then secretary of state, gave that famous speech at the united nations in which he held up a little bottle and said you known and this is what iraq has an powell has since said that is his most embarrassing, his worst moment in his tenure, not only

as a military officer but as secretary of state. i should have been more aggressive. i should have been, quite frankly, in that story i cited in "the washington post" i should have understood when you don't have smoking gun intelligence you are not sure and you will go to war on that basis -- anyway. >> host: onto christopher, oh, supporting the biden harris ticket. go ahead, customer. >> caller: okay. good morning to you both. massive respect for just the washington journal in and of itself to do this. the last thing i thought i be doing this morning was asking bob woodward a question. okay. there has been, we know over 200,000 deaths from covid-19 and

i want to know personally, do you feel any response ability for publicly withholding the information that donald trump initially disclosed to you early on about the virus like even later on after they got time for your book to come out but also in those initial times when he was telling you one thing and turning right around a week or two later on tv and telling all of us the exact opposite. >> host: mr. woodward. >> guest: it is a fair question and when trump told me on february 7 that he knew the virus was airborne and could be transmitted from somebody who bhad or did not have symptoms d that it was deadly in fact, more

deadly than the flu we were talking about china and he had just the evening before had a talk with president xi and i brought a stack of newspaper clippings from the my newspaper "the washington post" and "the new york times" and all through the time of january and february they were talking about china. i thought trump was talking about china and it was not until may that i learned that trump had been briefed in the centerpiece of this is january 28 when trump was told by his national security advisor that the virus, as robert o'brien put it too the presiden, is going to be, not as i say may be, but is going to be the national security threat to his

presidency and his deputy laid out information that he had from doctors in china and i did not know about that meeting until may and, what is interesting about journalism, obviously, reporters like you, sir, we live our lives in chronological order but you don't report in chronological order. if i had known wha' i learned in may, i obviously would have gone and published a story but i did not know where that was coming from and the context of my discussion with president trumpi is china and then when i learned he's talking about what he was presented on january 28 and i learned that by asking in may

president trump, do you remember that january 28 meeting on president trump said no and he didn't but then he said twice and he said i am sure it was said. i am sure it was said by that he had got that morning from o'brien and patting jurors so by may, even by march the virus was out of control and everyone knew it was deadly and my god, in march all of the sudden it just came to this country in a way, exactly that the president was told but came to this country and there were 30000 new cases a day. i was traveling around in early march going to california, going to florida and i had no idea when anthony prouty who is the leading infectious disease

official in this country, well-known on television was saying on february 29, go ahead there is no worry, go to the mall and go to the movies and go to the gym so there was no way for me, i had no information that that is what trump was talking about whenwh you walk te cats back and after i learned in may i realized and i asked the president was that where you got that information and he said yes, he knows it was said by o'brien. sounds like a convoluted explanation but that's exactly what happened and i still won' won't -- work at the washington post as an associate editor and i have access to the editor and to walk into his office office

or call and e-mail him and say i have information that needs to go in the paper and over the decades i have done that dozens and dozens of times and i would have done it in this case but i did not understand what trump was talking about. if you go back and look and look at these clips, every one of them in january and february is about china because that is where, at one point there was a front page in "the new york times" saying china because of the virus lockdown wuhan where it startedir in many other citis in china lockdown and when the chinese government locks down you go to your apartment and you are locked in it and 768 million people, that is twice the

population of the united states. all the discussion and the focus was on china, including, by me but of course trump had participated in the critical january 28 meeting and that is the day that the trump presidency should have changed and he should have realized what was coming and actually, he did and when he gave his state of the union address a couple of days later you know, this is to the congress and about what is going on in the world as he sees it and what is important and what is the future going to be like and i'm sorry, 40 million people watched that speech and he devoted 15 seconds to the virus saying we are doing everything we can and he was not doing everything he could. he could have told the country

the truth about what he had learned on january 28. he could have protected the people and he could have fulfilled his duty as president. unfortunately, he didn't. we now have over 200,000 deaths from that virus in this country. one year ago if we were talking and i said we will have a pandemic that will kill 200,000 people, you would think i was on 'ome drug of some sort but that is exactly what is happened. he could have mitigated that and he could have used his knowledge and as he told me and we played this audio and said i always liked to play it down and i like to play it down because he did not want to create a panic and

it's a sad element in all of this is if president trump did not understand the people he leads, people, democrats, republicans, undecided, people who don't vote have one thing in common and that is when they tell the truth they rally around and they step up and they do what is necessary to do deal with the problem. americanss don't panic and maybe some people will but by and large, if i may bore you a little bitu with history because history can tell us a lot in this case. my wife also walsh, we would go through all the information we were getting from trump and other people as i was writing this book and she was editing it six times and we sat at dinner one night and she said what

should trump have done? what is the remedy? she looked into history and franklin roosevelt famous fireside chat after one crisis or another and go back and listen and they will bring or it will bring tears to your eyes if you listen to roosevelt talking two days after pearl harbor and after the japanese sneak attack on pearl harbor.rl two days later president roosevelt comes on in this fireside chat and says it is all bad news in the most serious undertaking of our american history is before us and the very survival of our country in the world is at stake. it will be for every american citizen grueling work, day and

night, every hour, every minute and then he says government our government, his government has confidence in your ability to hear the worst i about losing heart. president trump instead approached this and said well, i better not tell the truth and i better play it down because people might panic. i know one thing from doing this for 50 years. people in this country don't panic. people in this country are strong. sorry to go so long but it's relevant. >> host: let's go to carolyn in georgia, supporting the president. >> caller: good morning. president trump is doing a very good job. we could make a whole list all the good things he has donee and

i know that we have a lot of this coming out and that president trump seems to trust a lot of the back staffers with information coming out. i want to take another minute to finish up but biden seems to have a poor sense of well-being and i just want to know if after two years and maybe this is something that you need to know that after two years will harris become our first president? and the last question i have, the plague always killed people which we hate but c-span, it would be good if they have something on the death rate in this country. my understanding from reading is that we lose about 7000 people daily and they just die. >> all of this appraisal will program available at c-span .org. we break