As it should be, the focus of coverage is on, and will continue to be on, narcissistic sociopath and pathological liar Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump's admission of lying to the American people about the coronavirus, something that cost tens of thousands of lives. The juxtaposition of his private, recorded remarks to Bob Woodward and his public lying is stark and unforgiving. He was so enamored with being interviewed by the legendary Woodward for his book "Rage" that he, well, metaphorically shot himself in the foot on Fifth Avenue.
The other remarks that Woodward got on the record concerning Trump's undermining of our national security, including disclosure of a highly secret weapons system, is equally shocking. Former Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis (USMC, ret.) saw Trump undermining decades of bipartisan national security policy, which boosted our adversaries. From CNN:
"When Trump says he wants to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan and South Korea, Mattis privately told [Director of National Intelligence Dan] Coats, 'That's dangerous,' Woodward reports. 'The President has no moral compass.'
Coats agreed. He's quoted as saying, 'To him, a lie is not a lie. It's just what he thinks. He doesn't know the difference between the truth and a lie.'
Mattis is quoted as saying Trump took foreign policy actions that showed adversaries 'how to destroy America. That's what we're showing them. How to isolate us from all of our allies. How to take us down. And it's working very well.'" (our emphasis)Trump's constant bragging also caused him to disclose to Woodward the existence of a new, highly secret nuclear weapons system, something that Russia and other adversaries will now target with their espionage activities:
“' I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about,' Trump told Woodward, according to the Post.It's reminiscent of his blurting out top secret information to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and former Russian Ambassador Kislyak in the Oval Office in the spring of 2017, bragging his way into a major security violation by exposing sources and methods.
"We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before,' Trump added, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. 'There’s nobody — what we have is incredible.'”
Much more will emerge in the days ahead, and certainly on CBS' 60 Minutes this Sunday, where Woodward will be interviewed about his 18 taped conversations with the cancer in the Oval Office.
