Multiply this thousands of times and apply it to all government issues (foreign policy, trade, immigration, etc.) and you begin to understand the problem of a person who never tells the truth because he lacks a basic understanding of what truth is and how one discerns it. “I had the view for 15 years I could play professional football. “That doesn’t mean they’re right,” Cohn said. Several times Cohn just asked the president, “Why do you have these views?”

He brings him copious research and data and finally makes it as simple as possible by asking: which would you choose-to go into a mine and get black lung or to make the same salary doing something else? He is attempting to intrude into Trump’s belief that our trade agreements are disgraceful because we’re losing manufacturing jobs-despite the data that more than 80 percent of our jobs are not in manufacturing and that a trade deficit is not a bad thing since it allows people to spend more money on what they’re spending it on anyway-services. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell.About a quarter of the way through this comprehensive history of everything leading up to the election of Trump and all the current events, Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs who is the president’s top economic advisor, attempts to explain our economy to Trump. 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.

That’s his nature.” Dowd also told Mueller, “I’m not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot.

At one point during the meeting, Dowd said, “He just made something up. Trump’s practice testimony was full of lies and contradictions, and he eventually became so irate that he launched into a 30-minute rant.ĭowd and Jay Sekulow, another Trump attorney, then visited Mueller’s office in March and re-enacted the rehearsal to explain why they would never allow the president to testify. Dowd went so far as to stage a rehearsal in January for Trump’s meeting with Mueller to prove that the president would be a terrible witness. Trump has said in the past that he would happily testify in front of Mueller, but Dowd repeatedly tried to hold the president back while serving as his personal lawyer.

Woodward book fear