Journalist and
author Bob Woodward, who's
joining me here in The Situation Room.
What's your reaction
to this moment in history
that we're all going through right now?
Well, it's it's very important and
there are
technicalities in the indictment
saying that Trump defrauded worked
to defraud
the government
of a process of
certifying and saying
who won the presidency
and what is in rooted in
all of
this is the concept
that it was a former president
who was chief justice of 100 years ago,
Chief Justice Taft,
who had been president,
who wrote that defrauding the government.
The theme line is dishonesty.
And if you read this indictment,
it's about dishonesty, about not being
story eight.
And people who don't like Trump or people
who do like Trump
should read it and ask this question,
do we want a president
who is dishonest?
I've spent some time
talking to people, to Republicans,
and I think a lot of them don't believe
that the election was stolen from him,
but they like him.
There's there's there's something about
we spend a lot of time
interviewing Trump during his last year
as president of the United States.
I want you and our viewers
to listen to 22 excerpts of that.
Listen to this. Thank you.
There's nobody this tougher than me.
Well, it's tough for them.
You ask me about impeachment.
I'm under impeachment.
And you said, you know,
you just act like you just won.
Nixon was in a corner
with his thumb in his mouth.
Bill Clinton took it very, very hard.
I just do things get I get people.
They come up with ideas.
But the ideas are mine but mine.
And you know something?
Everything's mine.
So what lessons do you learn from
Trump's mindset now?
Is he's going through
what he's going through?
Well,
he really believes everything is his.
And I hate what I came away
not just from
8 hours of interviews,
but writing three books on him
and spending seven years
on Donald Trump in his presidency.
He does not understand the presidency
and the responsibilities
It just does not get it.
He does not.
He looks at
democracy is enemy territory, really
is something
it's about the people them he likes.
Everything is about him.
Everything is mine.
So people are going to have to make that
assessment. And I think
the special counsel did
a great job of marshaling facts.
Some I've talked with you
about two years ago
when Bob Kasten and I did the book Peril
and you see the Giuliani memos.
You see the deceit.
You see the line.
You see the denial.
You see the pressure.
On Vice President Pence to do something
dishonest.
You know what this is about?
Serious as somebody who loves history.
You would.
Carl Bernstein
broke the Watergate scandal story
in The Washington Post.
Having done that,
did you ever expect
that we'd be going through as a country
right now
what we're clearly going through?
Oh, of course not.
But what's so interesting about
the Nixon crimes,
the sabotage, the espionage, the
the burglary of
Daniel Ellsberg psychiatrist's office.
17 wiretaps on reporters What?
All this was done illegally
before the election, which Nixon won.
He won 49 states.
It helped.
So
Nixon's crimes are before Election Day,
as the indictment alleges, of Trump.
All the crimes are after the election.
So in a sense, they decide
divided the world of electoral politics.
Nixon would do the crimes
before the election.
Now, Nixon won 49 states
and was helped with this criminality.
And its payoffs.
I remember Senator Ervin
asked, what was Watergate,
an effort to destroy the process
of nominating and electing a president.
But Ervin also asked
the very important question Why Watergate
why did we end?
Ervin, who ran that wonderful Senate
committee investigation of Nixon,
said, Why Watergate?
It is a lust for political power.
Now, that's the connection,
whether I'm sorry, but in
in the case of Trump,
it's not just political power.
It's personal power.
Everything is an important point.
Bob Woodward, as usual,
thank you very much
for being the excellent journalist
that you are. We're grateful.
Appreciate it.