The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward's Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump

by Bob Woodward, Donald J. Trump (Read by), Bob Woodward (Read by)

Overview

“I’m doing something here that I’ve never done before, presenting the lengthy, raw interviews of my work. In the fall of 2019 through August 2020, I interviewed President Trump 19 times for my second book on his presidency, Rage. I had also interviewed him in 2016 when he was a presidential candidate. I decided to take this unusual step of releasing these recordings after relistening in full to all 20 interviews. As I listened to them again I was stunned by their relevance to understanding Trump. Hearing Trump speak is a completely different experience to reading the transcripts or listening to snatches of interviews on television or the internet.” —Bob Woodward from The Trump Tapes

The Trump Tapes is the intimate and astonishing audio archive of Bob Woodward’s 20 interviews with Donald Trump.

Featuring more than eight hours of Woodward/Trump conversations, The Trump Tapes is as historically important as the Frost/Nixon interviews. In this up-close, unvarnished self-portrait of Trump and his presidency, listeners will hear Trump as Woodward did: profane, incautious, divisive, and deceptive, but also engaging and entertaining, ever the host and the salesman, trying to sell his presidency to win Woodward over.

Relying on familiar devices—airing grievances, stoking divisions, repeating himself to a staggering degree, as if saying something often and loud enough will make something true—Trump uses his voice as a concussive instrument, pounding in the listener’s ear.

In new commentary created exclusively for The Trump Tapes, Woodward at times breaks frame from the interviews to provide essential context or clarification. But for the most part the interviews proceed uninterrupted, fulfilling Woodward’s goal of presenting Trump’s voice and words for the historical record, and offering listeners the chance to hear and judge and make their own assessments.

As relevant as ever to the task of understanding Donald Trump, The Trump Tapes reveal Trump in his own words—a man consumed by the past and clinging to his grievances, unable to understand his responsibilities as president or address the crises affecting the country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781797124728
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Audio Originals
Publication date:	11/22/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	645,117
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 5.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Bob Woodward is an associate editor at the Washington Post where he has worked for forty-nine years and reported on every American president from Nixon to Trump. He has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, first for the Post’s coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein, and second twenty years later as the lead Post reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Donald J. Trump, author and businessman, was the forty-fifth president of the United States. He was chief executive officer of the Trump Organization.

Hometown:

Washington, D.C.

Date of Birth:

March 26, 1943

Place of Birth:

Geneva, Illinois

Education:

B.A., Yale University, 1965

Table of Contents

Author's Personal Note vii

Transcript

Opening Selection of Excerpts ix

Introduction 1

Interview 1 The Lone Ranger 5

Interview 2 Rocket Man 45

Interview 3 Nothing Scares Me 86

Interview 4 It Ended in Dust 136

Interview 5 Those Are So Top Secret 175

Interview 6 Favorite Dictators 177

Interview 7 This Is Deadly Stuff 200

Interview 8 I'm Number One 212

Interview 9 I Wanted to Always Play It Down 223

Interview 10 Words Cause Wars 247

Interview 11 What Is the Plan? 254

Interview 12 You Have Options 274

Turning Point: Trump's National Security Advisers 295

Interview 13 I'm Sure He Said It 311

Interview 14 I Ain't No Bush 321

Interview 15 George Floyd 328

Interview 16 You Really Drank the Kool-Aid 339

Interview 17 Nobody's Done What I've Done 350

Interview 18 I'm Not Feeling Any Love 376

Interview 19 Failure to Warn. Failure to Act 389

Interview 20 The Next One I Need Is You 408

Epilogue 414

Close 421

Appendix

Kim Jong Un-Trump Letters 423

Editorial Reviews

There is no question that hearing Trump has an impact that reading alone cannot match…In a Morning Edition interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Woodward speaks of how ‘the power of the audio’ brings home something disturbing about Trump. ‘His voice is so consumed with himself and how he feels and his conclusions.’”

NPR

There is no question that hearing Trump has an impact that reading alone cannot match....?? Woodward is showing in his own way how difficult it is to do journalism and historiography at the same time....In a Morning Edition interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Woodward speaks of how "the power of the audio" brings home something disturbing about Trump. ‘His voice is so consumed with himself and how he feels and his conclusions.’"

NPR - Ron Elving

A passport to the heart of darkness. . . Disturbingly relevant.”—Lloyd Greene, The Guardian



“We finally got a Trump tell-all told by Donald Trump himself”—Jimmy Kimmel



"A window into Trump’s psyche"—Rick Wilson, The Lincoln Project



“Incredible, especially hearing that type of immaturity in the voice of the man holding the office of the presidency.”—Sunny Hostin, The View



“Astonishing.” —Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC



“You’re in the room. . . This is Donald Trump unvarnished.”—Jamie Gangel, CNN



“A valuable resource for voters and historians alike.”—Peter Baker, The New York Times

From the Publisher

This audiobook is a collection of interviews conducted by WASHINGTON POST journalist Bob Woodward with Donald Trump throughout the past decade. As anyone who has heard Trump speak can attest, the former president can talk around a subject with the best of them, but this work puts that skill to the test. Woodward does not accept Trump's word salads as answers. Trump sounds typically brash and boastful, talking glibly about everything, often exaggerating or telling out-and-out untruths. When he does, Woodward corrects him, sometimes to his face, other times in notes to listeners. While Woodward speaks slowly and distinctly, age has clearly taken its toll, forcing him at times to e-nun-ci-ate every syllable. The work is a powerful statement about contemporary politics. M.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile

This audiobook is a collection of interviews conducted by WASHINGTON POST journalist Bob Woodward with Donald Trump throughout the past decade. As anyone who has heard Trump speak can attest, the former president can talk around a subject with the best of them, but this work puts that skill to the test. Woodward does not accept Trump's word salads as answers. Trump sounds typically brash and boastful, talking glibly about everything, often exaggerating or telling out-and-out untruths. When he does, Woodward corrects him, sometimes to his face, other times in notes to listeners. While Woodward speaks slowly and distinctly, age has clearly taken its toll, forcing him at times to e-nun-ci-ate every syllable. The work is a powerful statement about contemporary politics. M.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile