Of course, learning what Trump was saying in private might not have made a difference to his supporters. If Woodward knew that Trump knew Covid-19 was deadly serious, critics asked, why did he wait so long to tell the country? Wasn’t it possible that revealing the truth earlier could have saved lives? If people like Mark Anthony Urquiza had learned that Trump was deliberately lying to them, might they have changed their behavior? But another backlash against Woodward soon followed. The backlash against Trump in response to the revelations of Rage was fierce and swift. New audio proves it: Trump deliberately deceived America about the coronavirus “His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life.” “My dad was a healthy 65-year-old,” Urquiza said. Her father, Mark Anthony Urquiza, a Trump supporter, died of Covid-19 after going to a bar, citing Trump’s urging to “get out and about.” Take, for instance, Kristin Urquiza, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August. The president of the United States told people they were safe in situations he knew to be unsafe, and as a result, he placed them in danger. But he has additionally failed anyone who believes in him because of his status and office. Trump’s policies in response to the pandemic have been a clear failure with regard to public health and the safety and economic security of all Americans. It was also on March 19 that Trump told Woodward he was intentionally “playing down” the threat of the virus in public because “I don’t want to create a panic.” On March 19, Trump told Woodward that the illness could attack the young as well as the old a few months later, during a public briefing in July, he declared that young people were “almost immune” to the disease. Trump declared on February 27 that the virus would soon disappear “like a miracle.” “This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward on February 7, adding that he knew the virus was “airborne.” Yet as late as March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was advising Americans to focus on washing their hands to prevent the spread of the virus, rather than to think about ventilation.

But it has also led to questions about Woodward himself, and the way he chose to report on the president. That revelation set off a storm of fury at Trump. As publisher Simon & Schuster prepared to release the book on September 15, a revelation hit the news that was actually shocking: Woodward announced that Trump knew as early as February that the Covid-19 pandemic was a lot more serious than he let on publicly - and Woodward had the tapes to prove it. Bob Woodward’s new Trump exposé, Rage, promised to deliver bombshells.

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