UPDATE: Trump and his advisors have started denying Woodward's reporting.
Trump tweets: “The Woodward book has already been refuted and discredited by General (Secretary of Defense) James Mattis and General (Chief of Staff) John Kelly.”
He adds: “Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public. Likewise other stories and quotes. Woodward is a Dem operative? Notice timing?”
(...)
[Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis said Tuesday in a statement: “The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward’s book were never uttered by me or in my presence.”
The book recounts that Mattis told “close associates that the president acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’”
Mattis says in the statement: “While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility.”
Mattis says the notion that he would “show contempt” for Trump or “tolerate disrespect” to the office of the President of the United States “is a product of someone’s rich imagination.”
(...)
White House chief of staff John Kelly is denying an account in journalist Bob Woodward’s new book that he called Trump an “idiot.”
Kelly says, “The idea I ever called the president an idiot is not true.”
The Latest: Trump calls quotes in Woodward book ‘frauds’ (AP)
Bob Woodward, the journalist and author best known for his work with Carl Bernstein uncovering Watergate, has a new book, "Fear," coming out September 11th that contains a lot of information about how the president and his legal staff are handling the Russia probe inside the administration.
John Dowd was convinced that President Trump would commit perjury if he talked to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. So, on Jan. 27, the president’s then-personal attorney staged a practice session to try to make his point.
In the White House residence, Dowd peppered Trump with questions about the Russia investigation, provoking stumbles, contradictions and lies until the president eventually lost his cool.
“This thing’s a goddamn hoax,” Trump erupted at the start of a 30-minute rant that finished with him saying, “I don’t really want to testify.”
(...)
Woodward writes that his book is drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants and witnesses that were conducted on “deep background,” meaning the information could be used but he would not reveal who provided it. His account is also drawn from meeting notes, personal diaries and government documents.
Woodward depicts Trump’s anger and paranoia about the Russia inquiry as unrelenting, at times paralyzing the West Wing for entire days. Learning of the appointment of Mueller in May 2017, Trump groused, “Everybody’s trying to get me”— part of a venting period that shellshocked aides compared to Richard Nixon’s final days as president.
President Trump called Woodward early last month, after the book was finished, complaining he had not been interviewed. Woodward explained to the president he had sought an interview on multiple occasions and was rejected.
The Post has published the full transcript and audio of that call.
The book details how the president attacks his own high-level staff on a regular basis, including the insults he launches at Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
A near-constant subject of withering presidential attacks was Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump told [then-staff secretary Rob] Porter that Sessions was a “traitor” for recusing himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, Woodward writes. Mocking Sessions’s accent, Trump added, “This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner. … He couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.”
(...)
Hovering over the White House was Mueller’s inquiry, which deeply embarrassed the president. Woodward describes Trump calling his Egyptian counterpart to secure the release of an imprisoned charity worker and President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi saying: “Donald, I’m worried about this investigation. Are you going to be around?”
Trump relayed the conversation to Dowd and said it was “like a kick in the nuts,” according to Woodward.
The book vividly recounts the ongoing debate between Trump and his lawyers about whether the president would sit for an interview with Mueller. On March 5, Dowd and Trump attorney Jay Sekulow met in Mueller’s office with the special counsel and his deputy, James Quarles, where Dowd and Sekulow reenacted Trump’s January practice session.
Dowd then explained to Mueller and Quarles why he was trying to keep the president from testifying: “I’m not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot. And you publish that transcript, because everything leaks in Washington, and the guys overseas are going to say, ‘I told you he was an idiot. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell. What are we dealing with this idiot for?’ ”
“John, I understand,” Mueller replied, according to Woodward.
Later that month, Dowd told Trump: “Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit.”
But Trump, concerned about the optics of a president refusing to testify and convinced that he could handle Mueller’s questions, had by then decided otherwise.
“I’ll be a real good witness,” Trump told Dowd, according to Woodward.
“You are not a good witness,” Dowd replied. “Mr. President, I’m afraid I just can’t help you.”
The next morning, Dowd resigned.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders responded Tuesday afternoon to the excerpts published from Woodword's book.
“This book is nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the President look bad,” Sanders said in a statement.
However, she did not dispute anything specific in what the press has published so far.
John Dowd, on the other hand, is pushing back against Woodward's work.
In a statement, Dowd said that he had not read Woodward’s book and pushed back against Woodward’s reporting, including the “orange jumpsuit” comment , the practice session and the re-enactment.
“I do not intend to address every inaccurate statement attributed to me — but I do want to make this clear: there was no so-called ‘practice session’ or ‘re-enactment’ of a mock interview at the Special Counsel’s office,” Dowd said. “Further, I did not refer to the President as a ‘liar’ and did not say that he was likely to end up in an ‘orange jump suit’. It was a great honor and distinct privilege to serve President Trump.”
In a statement to The Post, Woodward said: “I stand by my reporting.”
The White House’s dismissal of Woodward’s book comes after the president himself praised him on Twitter several years ago, when Woodward was reporting on a different occupant of the White House.
“Only the Obama WH can get away with attacking Bob Woodward,” Trump tweeted in 2013.
Bob Woodward’s new book reveals a ‘nervous breakdown’ of Trump’s presidency (WaPo)
Transcript: Phone call between President Trump and journalist Bob Woodward (WaPo)
White House strikes back at Bob Woodward over new book (WaPo)