robert: a legendary reporter shines a light on the trump presidency. i'm robert costa. tonight, we welcome bob woodward to "washington week." a new book by pulitzer prize winning reporter, bob woodward, depicts chaos ie the white house. why are so many officesls tioning president trump's decisis on trade, national security, and then showdow with the speal counsel. is the trump administration on the brink of a nervous breakdown? we discuss the stakes for the president and the country, next. announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by -- newman's own foundation, donating all profits from newman's own food products to charity and nourishing the comm good. koo and patricia yuen through

the yuen foundation, committed to bridging culturalifferences in our communities. the ethics and excellence in journalism foundatio the corporation for publicng broadcasand by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you.u. thank once again, from washington, moderator, robert cost robert:good evening. tonight, a specialdition of our program. bob woodward, the pulitzer prize winning reporter for the washington "post" joi us for a conversation about his new book, "fear: truho in the white e." bob traces donald trump's journey from then campa trail to 1600 pennsylvania avenue. bob, so glad to haveou here. bob: thank you. robert: speaking of pennsylvania avenue, i think back to our conversation with then trump in march -- eob: 2 1/2 years ago. and w sat in that little

restaurant before going to h hotel, which was then undergoing renovation. robert: and do you remember what he told us? you told me then, bob, that we need to find out how president trump sees per. you said that's the core of a presidency, how they use power. so what have you lrned? bob: yes -- so much. but to go back to that moment, we're talking about power and what we- did obama, of course, was the incumbent. so you and i wen back and looked at some obama statements. his first ial, he said, oh, being president is about restraint andumility. and real power is not having to use violence. so we ask trump, you know, what about power? and that's when he said, real power is, i don't even like toe

he word, fear. and it was this moment. i kind of jumped in my chair. i think you did, too, that this is the clue. robert: how does he use that wer? is there an ideology that's driving this? or is it all about transactional politics? bob: it's all about pragmatic moments, the application of ideas that he's had going back often 30 years agoti about al security, about the presidency, about trade. i mean, you name -- about n north americane free trade agreement, about europe. and what i've tried to do is say, ok, what does he do in each of these cases? but there's a line between our discussion before going to see trump and then talking to trump. and the presidency is also about

an obligation to the people who put you there, butus not the ones who elected you. and i always think the job of the president is to the next stage of good for a majority of people in the country,ot a base, not one party, not interest groups. and this is one of the things he has not done. robert: what drives those views, though? years, and in 30 the book, president trump tells gary cohn, his formerconomic adviser, i've had these views for 30 years. why does he h those views? bob: he doesn't answer. it's jus that's the way it is and if you disagree with me, according to trump, you're soong. you can't -- we all have to grow. presidents have to grow. and the ability l toten and change or modify shifted a little bit, is the core of

surviving in the presidency. and there is,s i say, this nervous breakdown. and i think it manifests itself in everything. you live in trump-world, covering it. what surprised you the mostth in book? robert: what surprised me was the effort that's being made by so many people around him to bring him back into the mainstowam, backds certain norms. you see that in the scene you detail at the pentagon, in the so-called tank at the pentagon where they try toimxplain to the traditional alliances of u.s. foreign policy. he's pretty dismissive about it all. bob: he's insulting to people. here you have mattis, the secretary of defense, saying to him -- puts up on the wall these maps of kind of the pillars of the old order -- trade agreements security agreements

like nato and then the very sensitive secret, top-secret, special access program intelligence partnerships. and trump doesn't b into any of this. and they're allisuraged on the economic side. mnuchin tells mr. president, about china being a currency manipulator, look, mr. president, they used to but they don't now, and the law is very clear, yan take action unless they're doing it now and trump is just, it!clare as if you can rule beyond the law.be : that style, in terms of foreign policy, has a real cost. you write about how the u.s. came to the brink of a real dramatic situation with north derea. the pre was pulled back on tweeting about removing

dependence from south korea. bob: ts could -- and just at the time, top north korea leader sent a message tough intermediaries to h.r. mcmaster, national secity adviser, december 4 of last year, saying, if you start withdrawing dependence, we t wille that as a signal that war is imminent. you have a volatile leader, kim jong-un.he he's got nuclear weapons. and there's no predictable path for understanding how he might respond. and the pentagon leadership went nuts about this and just said the tweet never went out. but had it, you know, god knows. and this is the problem. yous are cri managing, that's what the presidency is about.

and you got to the have a team. you got to have agreement on fundamentals and they don't have it. robert: do the people around him who are taking documents off of his dk, different trade agreements the president is trying to rip up, do they see emselves, when you talk to them, as heroes? or do they knowhey are, in a sense, mounting, as you call it, an administrative coup d'etat? bob: there is lotsf o conscience in this and the connection militaryrade and the and the intelligence operations are very, very secret and they are interwoven and people who did this are saying toh e other, got to save the country. e of them saying, a third of my time is spent keeping bad things from happening. and so alarm bells are going off

all the time. robert: steve bannon, formeris chief stratt to the president, has called it an in-your-face state, the group of people around the preside trying to corral him in a different direction, not necessaril a deep state. how do you see that effort? bob: trump will just do what he wants and he'll listen up toin and then he'll dismiss -- like steel tariffs. if you took e 1,000nomists and say, do steel tariffs make sense? and i quoteoc aent in the book where experts on the left, the right, the economists, nobel prize winners, alan greenspan, ben bernanke, leading democratic s, sendublican economi him a letter saying, don't do this. this will not work. and, of course, he does it, andn call the steel executives.

even john kelly, the chief of staff, didn't know there was going to be this meeting. and trump just does it. under the law, he has that authority. some people thinke may be stretching it. but now we are in the world of these trade wars which he says he thinks he can win. wow. danger, danger. i mean, the fright that people feel. there's one point t where bossert, his cyb chief -- no one has talked about this. but he goes to see trump. he's going to go on television on a sunday show and trump sayst tellm i'm putting tariffs up to $500 billion on china. now, this was four or fivehs

mo ago. of course, that's exactly where he's heading. an the president's so so pumped up about this, he says, you know, boy, it's too bad it's a sunday show because if it were monday and the markets wereop , you'd tank the markets. the president's job is not to tank the market. it's to stabilize the markets. i was really surprised byathat, he would -- because he spent all this time in new yorks unnds finance in a way. in aay he does not. but to speak proudly ofeanking markets, potentially. what the did you think? you l trump day to day. robert: you've had the opportunity to spend so much time talking to these key players inside, talking to you in deep background, revealingwh

's really happening. what have you learned about president trump as a person? h you saye knows the markets. what else does he know? bob: he doesn't know some of the markets. he knows they're out there buthe hinks things like, let's just print money, run the presses.th 're telling him, no, you can't do that, you'll run up the deficit. as you know, economists on the left and the r, republicans and democrats, are worried about the deficit spending. but it's just, let'so it, let's print money. robert: secretary jim mattis in the defense department, chief of staff, john kelly, are they getting too much credit for keeping president trump in linee use he still seems to be going his own way on every front. bob: that's a really interesting question. where's the credit? i think it happens at lots of levels. there are some people who've read the book who say you know, he hasn't started a war. which is quite true.

he's talked about let's assassinate or let's go after, let's kill the syrian ld.der as he has -- someone was telling me today, hugh hewit wants to air-drop copies of the book to every embassyn washington because this will tell you how he's working. it tells you a lothat's new but there is the mystery of thei trump perso which persists. robert: and the mystery of the republican party persists. you have all these adviser and officials in the book trying to bring president trump in a different direction. but where are the republican leaders? speaker ryan, majorit leader mcconnell. they seem to barely figure in the effort to kee tmp moving toward the center. bob: that's exactly right. and, of course, this is -- a lot

n people have compared this to theon case, watergate, which i spent years of my life on. and at a certain point, it tipped, and the republicans said, as barry goldwater, fmer te senator from arizona, finally went and said,oo many lies, too many crimes. and nixon resigneex the day. where that tipping point is with trump, if there is one, we don't know. somebody who knows him well after the book came outd, s he's going to lash out at you, which he's done. he is a master at changing the conversation as you know. and so we're going to sees effoo change the conversation, which is fine. but it's -- the core thought i have, there's a war on truth.

and the book ends with john twd, his lawyer for eight months in mueller investigation. he won't tell in thiau b it's too insulting, bd, he s you're an f'ing liar. th's the summation. you can't run this complex country on untruth. robert: how much is that mueller investigation, the s counsel, looking into russian interference in the 2016r hovering ohe presidency fueling the anger? bob: immensely so. more so than i thought. there are a couple of sces where trump asks dowd to go to mueller and say, you know, the president wants you to know that the egyptian president, el-sissi, a real tyrant, called, and negotiated with trump about

getting some charity worker released from egypt. which happened. and then trump recounts what el-sissi said, you know, and trump's telling dowd, this guy, el-sissi, is killer. he's a real killer. he'll make you swe on the phone. and then trump assumes the waveling voice of el-sissi, and says, donalt about this investigation? what's going on here? will you still be around? suppos i need a favor? robert: so he feels that kind of burden in operating foreign policy. he can't escape it, can't escape the russia probe,ay in, day out. bob: that's right. the day after mueller was appointed in may last year, there is a long extended scene in the oval office in the dining room where trump is just beside himself, doesn't really sit down, is just on his feet bac

and forth, tivo'ing all the cable news and looking at some of it and saying, how has this happened? he realized t calamity of having a special counsel and he said, muelleroi is to go into every phase of life. i am -- i mean, he feels and sounds like he's been tied up by this. robert: you think about what happened on friday. earlier today, paul manafort, trump's former campaign chairman, decides to plead guilty to money laundering, cooperatingith mueller's investigation. it doesn't stop. bob: it doesn't. you would know more about this. would manafort know much? i think he was just brought in im manage the campaign for a short period offor the republican national convention. do you think he knows --

robert: he's connected. he was the chairman of the trump ntmpaign. my ps that every day president trump, whether in a conversation a world leader or with histaff, he's haunted, in a sense, by the russia vestigation. bob: he definitely is. interestingn question for our business, the media. how do we h cover aggressively but fairly? because there are lots of people, his supporters, who think we've adopted a tone of snideness. how do you get that? robert: how do you do it? bob: how do you do it? robert: you think about the trump voter, whenever you meet them on the campaign trail, they say the econo t's strong,y like the nominees for the supreme court, they think president trump's doing fine. there'sco a dect in the country, parts of the country. those who are armed by president trump and those who say he's doing just fine.nk bob: i t the answer, as

always, is, you and i have talked over the last couple of years, more reporting.ea whaty happened. what did they say, what was the final resolution of some of these things or at least the temporary resolution. because often theresn't a final one. robert: how does the president see race? there's an episode in the book about charlottesville. he calec his s where he apologizes for his initial remarks ands backtra them the worst mistake of his presidency. bob: he saysut a charlottesville that both sides are responsible and there is anr tion of, wait a minute, you're saying nazis are fine? so then rob porter, staff secretary and sarah sanders work with him on a speech, which he gives, which is a healing speech

on sunday. but if you look at that, if you ran it, you would see, of like a hostage tape, saying thin he doesn't necessarily believe, but he said them. an then he watches a little fox g, it'sd people are say a course correction. and he blows up and says that's the worst f'ing speech i ever gave, how could i do that? who talked me int it? and the next monday, he reverts to his original position in a very sta way. robert: does that tell us about how he sees race? or does thatt jll us how president trump never wants to be on the defensive? i boan't answer that question. all i can do is show it. you see the reaction to people. what it suggests to a number is that it means the war, the race war in this country,ill never

end, unless you have a president who's going to take steps to heal. ani was really shocked at that. iug t, for a few words, you create suchvo nness that you throw fuel on this racialdi ord in the country. it's out of the mainstream. and i think youav to look at every day,ike this is the way the people in the white house ok at i which is, who knows what's going to happen. the tweets, they start the day. yo know this. reading the tweets. rosrt: he's upsta alone in the executive residence of the whitewe houseing by himself. when you think of all the challenges you've laid out bob, in the book, in your reporting. are the challenges surrounding

president trump different, in a different class, tn t challenges you've encountered with the nine other presidents you've observed? bob: this is unique because it is -- there's not an operating theory, there's not a team building. i keep going back to, you've got to have a team. it's like here on your show. you have a team. roducers.all your i know they do all the work, not you. robert: very true. bob: at "the washington post, you have a team.yo need a team. and collaboration is the only way youet to solutions and a leader has to listen and i think the listening skills of a leader are among the most important and he just doesn't want to listen. he wants to talk and he wants to -- it's -- it's a very

troubling time. and people w want to pretend it's not troubling areng kid themselves. robert: are the institutions -- congress, the federal agencies, the norms in this country are they holding? bob: it could be tested. and is is when you have -- when there's a real crisis. how do you -- excuse me -- how does he make his decision in ay that, well, takeisrom disruptor instincts and the past, these institutions that have been handed him. when people say "it's not normal," of course it's not normal. he won on not being normal. you don't have to be normal but you have to be -- you can't go around -- i was talking to some of the bbc people today. and my god, you know, in europe,

they're just saying, what is going on? this book is the best seller ieu pe. imagine that. that just doesn't happen. that's because people wonder where this all ends. robert: whether it's in europe, inside the white house, even now, in 2018, there's a mass effort to try understand president trump, again and again, people are asking the question, who is he. bob: and unfortunately, his lawyer, john dowd, gets the closing comment in this book and that is, that he's an'ing liar. and this theme, our newspaper, 4 ,200 and so many lies or distortions, that's important. i think most important is what he doeson on na security. that's where you can make a

mistake, where you havee to h the secretary of defense tell you we're doing all these things to prevent world war iii, job one for a president. aven you the beleaguered trump, in the mueller pbe, which he just, as john dowd says, you know, he's really disabled. he can't tell the truth. woodward, thank you so much for your reporting, your insights, now, and fort the p four decades. appreciate your time. thanks for being here.io our convers will continue on the "washington week extra." you can find this week's special edition right now andll weekend long atin pbs.org/waonweek. to everyone affected by huicane florence, please be safe. we are thinking of you. i'm robert costa. thanks for joining us. [captioning performe cby the nationtioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.

visit ncicap.org.] announcer: funding for "wbyhington week" is provide -- newman's own foundation,ng donall profits from newman's own's food products to charity and nourishing the common good. the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your station from viewers like you. thank you.

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