Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward said Monday on “CNN’s Tonight” said former President Trump’s handling of the COVID pandemic was a “crime.” because he kept early warnings about the health crisis from the American people.
In a clip from his audiobook from the summer of 2020, Woodward asks, “Was there a moment in all of this last two months where you said to yourself, this is the leadership test of a lifetime?”
Trump replied, “No.”
Woodward said, “He’s dismissing any responsibility he has. And that no is like a thunderclap, ‘I’m walking away from this.’ If there was ever the leadership test of a lifetime for the president, it was this pandemic. It was a health and political crisis like we have not seen in this country. And he walked away from it. And as you listen to these tapes, particularly on the virus, but on any subject, he kind of goes from denial to concealment to the crime.”
He continued, “I call it a crime, not telling the people that he had been warned by his national security advisers in the most vivid way, which is outlined in these tapes, the interviews with them, where they are telling him.”
Woodward added, “I have known 16 national security advisers going back to Kissinger, and never once heard one come and tell the president, ‘This will be the biggest national security threat to your presidency.’ And it wasn’t about China or Russia or Iran. It was about a domestic health crisis that he was covering up.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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