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With the media abuzz with embarrassing new details leaked from the new book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House, President Trump launched a Twitter offensive to discredit the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter using his usual attacks on the credibility of any journalist who reports a shred of negative information about the President or his administration.
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Trump began his assault on Woodward by posting statements from two of the people with the most damaging stories as relayed in the book: Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
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Statement from Secretary of Defense, James Mattis: pic.twitter.com/OneaxKCneV
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2018
Statement from White House Chief of Staff, General John Kelly: pic.twitter.com/LUN8cDr3N5
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2018
Both statements are predictable denials of the stories that the meticulous Woodward sourced from his hundreds of hours of taped confidential background interviews and dozens of sources in Trump’s inner circle, as well as documents, files, diaries and memos, including a note handwritten by Trump himself.
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Their repudiations of Woodward’s reporting seem like reflexive kowtowing to their boss’s desire to label any truthful negative stories as ‘fake news,” and are as expected as an employee’s denial after being accused of embezzlement by their boss.
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Trump then tweeted out the official White House line from Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as if anyone at this point believes a word that the president’s official prevaricator utters.
Statement from White House @PressSec, Sarah Sanders: pic.twitter.com/mE73HSi6Rl
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2018
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Finally, Trump issued a tweet in his own words (or more likely, since there were no misspellings or odd capitalization in the tweet and it contained multi-syllabic vocabulary, words probably actually written by a staff member.)
The Woodward book has already been refuted and discredited by General (Secretary of Defense) James Mattis and General (Chief of Staff) John Kelly. Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public. Likewise other stories and quotes. Woodward is a Dem operative? Notice timing?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2018
The laughable sight of the man referred to by many of his detractors as Don The Con accusing one of the nation’s most respected journalists of perpetrating a con on the public with made up quotes can only make one exclaim “Lordy, I hope there are tapes!” as Former FBI Director James Comey said when Trump tweeted the misleading comment that Comey had better hope that there were no tapes of his conversation with the president.
While Woodward has yet to respond to Trump’s accusations — and may never given the credibility gap between the respected journalist and the president who averages 7.6 lies per day according to the latest tally by The Washington Post — both Mattis and Kelly had better hope that that Woodward doesn’t have tapes. Otherwise they may need to steal the announcement of their dismissals form the president’s desk so he can’t sign them.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
