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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. On this show, we don't jump on every story in the press about outrageous things that President Trump is alleged to have said. You know the pattern, people report that someone close to Trump says he said this or that, Trump denies it and mostly people move on.

Like we didn't do a segment last week, when The Atlantic reported on anonymous Trump officials alleging that Trump called people who died in World War I, suckers and losers. We didn't do a segment on Michael Cohen's new book, in which Cohen alleged that Trump is serious about trying to stay in office for more than two terms. There's something every day reported and denied. We try to keep our eye on actions not tweets, policies not allegations, but today is different.

We were planning a different topic for this segment today, to be honest, but yesterday afternoon when I heard the Trump tapes recorded by journalist Bob Woodward, I stopped what I was doing, went back and listened to the clips again and then asked our producer if we could switch this up. By now most of you know what I'm talking about, Trump told Woodward back on February 7th, that the coronavirus was deadlier than the flu, while repeatedly telling the public the opposite.

He later admitted to Woodward on tape that he downplayed the threat on purpose. Let's face it, downplaying threats trying to minimize people's fears is not what Donald Trump is famous for. Sometimes the best weapon he has is fear itself, and we know he's not afraid to use it. I'll play the basic clips again now for those of you who haven't heard them yet, or those who still can't believe your ears and are thinking, "Wait, what exactly did he say there?"

Then I'll play a clip of someone, who says her father got the virus and died because he believed Trump's downplaying of it, that contradicted the experts. I'll play a clip of Joe Biden from back in January that the White House is using to excuse the President's duplicity, spoiler alert, it doesn't. Here we go. Many, many times the President has said this is like the flu, and we don't shut down the economy over the flu, but here's the clip of what he told Bob Woodward in early February.

Listen to the end of this in particular, when he calls the virus, "more deadly than even your strenuous flus".

President Donald Trump: It goes through air, Bob, that's always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don't have to touch things right, but the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. That's a very tricky one, that's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.

Brian: That was February 7th, to use an old Watergate line. What did the President know and when did he know it? That's how early Trump knew that COVID was more deadly than even your strenuous flus, as he put it, February 7th. He said this to the American people more than a month later, this is from March 10th.

President Donald Trump: Now, I guess we're at 26 deaths, and if you look at the flu for this year, we're looking at 8,000 deaths. Hundreds of thousands of cases we have 8,000 deaths, 8000 versus 26 deaths at this time.

Brian: That was March 10th, "Now I guess we're at 26 deaths and if you look at the flu, 8,000 deaths 26 deaths at this time". Later in March, he spoke to Woodward on tape again and admitted that he was playing down the threat, compared to what it actually was.

President Donald Trump: I wanted to always play it down, I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic.

Brian: Donald Trump to Bob Woodward, it might have been only one street that he was trying to avoid panic on, Wall Street. We could argue he has tried to get the American people to be more afraid than the objective threat about things like immigration, or how low income housing would destroy the suburbs, which he's claiming these days, but was this just one more political spin? Or, did this one have life and death consequences now that we're at 190,000 deaths?

Maybe remember this story that a woman from Arizona, told last month at the Democratic Convention?

Kristin Urquiza: Hi, I'm Kristin Urquiza. I'm one of the many who has lost a loved one to COVID. My dad, Mark Anthony Urquiza should be here today, but he isn't. He had faith in Donald Trump, he voted for him, listened to him, believed him and his mouthpieces when they said that coronavirus was under control and going to disappear. That it was okay to end social distancing rules because it was safe, and that if you had no underlying health conditions, you'd probably be fine.

In late May, after the stay at home order was lifted in Arizona, my dad went to a karaoke bar with his friends. A few weeks later, he was put on a ventilator. After five agonizing days, he died alone in the ICU, with a nurse holding his hand. My dad was a healthy 65-year old. His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life.

Brian: Maybe that's an example of the consequences, of Trump strenuously advising people to go back to normal, while telling Bob Woodward the coronavirus is more deadly than even your strenuous flus. With me now on this and a few other stories in the news today, if we have time, is associated press White House correspondent Jonathan Lemire. Hi Jonathan, welcome back to WNYC.

Jonathan Lehmire: Hey, Brian, I'm happy to come out of the bullpen here with the changing topic today. It's always a pleasure.

Brian: Listeners, let me invite you and let me invite Trump supporters, if you believed him on coronavirus before and thought Anthony Fauci and everyone else has been overreacting, do you feel betrayed by Donald Trump today? 646-435-7280, does hearing him and his own voice say that this was deadlier than even strenuous flus, and then admitting he downplayed it make you think differently about Trump and truth and public health?

Are there other Christian Urquiza's stories out there, or do you somehow think he was acting in the public interest with those different stories?

646-435-7280. We've done this on other things in the past, and usually what we get is Trump supporters calling in to say, "No, this doesn't change my opinion because-." How about this one? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Jonathan, did Trump know he was being recorded by Bob Woodward during these interviews?

Jonathan: He most certainly did. The President sat for a number of interviews with Bob Woodward, of course of Watergate fan, who has written books about most presidents that have followed Richard Nixon and certainly a Washington institution in himself. I think it's important to just pull back the curtain a little bit here, about the back story as to how this came about.

Certainly, these comments appear damaging and so are there questions, as to why the President would have participated in interviews that could lead to such damaging remarks being made public.

Let's trace back to 2018, Bob Woodward wrote another book about the Trump administration, it was not with the President's participation. In fact, senior aides in the White House decided to keep the interview, Woodward's interview request, from the president, Kellyanne Conway in particular has been on record saying that she did.

The White House had just dealt with a series of damaging books, including Michael Wolfe's. They thought there was no upside at participating. The book came out and had a fairly unflattering portrayal of President Trump. He was livid both at the caricature, but also that he wasn't able to be involved. He thought that he could better shape the narrative, shape the story, and would be able to help create a far more flattering and positive depiction of himself.

He said at the time to aides that, if Woodward were to write another book, he absolutely would want to participate. There were some in the White House this time around who also objected, but others like Jared Kushner were on board. Even if they weren't the president, some of these interviews were done in late night phone calls from the White House residence, when no aide could have stopped him.

The President is someone who holds certain media institutions, and certainly those whose life and time feels it's like it's a time capsule for the 1980s. Bob Woodward then, like he is now, was one of the biggest names in journalism. Trump held him in high regard. He wanted to participate, he wanted to get a positive Trump book, but certainly in the excerpts that we've seen so far, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Brian: I touched on this a minute ago, but he stated reason for publicly downplaying the threat to not cause panic. You've been covering the White House for the whole Trump administration. Is that consistent with how he usually talks about perceived threats?

Jonathan: No. He often plays up panic. We have seen him just depict the so-called "caravan of immigrants" heading toward the southern border United States, just ahead of the 2018 midterms, mind you as an existential threat to America. We see what he's doing now. The violence that we have seen at times in places like Portland or Oregon, or Kenosha, Wisconsin. He is saying that these are left-wing radicals and anarchists who control Joe Biden, and again threaten the American way of life.

His MO is usually to drum up the panic, drum up the fear, but he perceived this, the coronavirus, as an impending peril to his presidency, to the economy, on the back of which he was going to run for re-election, to the stock market, to his chances of another four years in office. Certainly, yes, as you say. The White House's party line in the last 24 hours has been, the president didn't want to incite panic.

He wanted to maintain calm, and he's tweeted to that effect this morning but here's the question, is there a difference between trying to maintain calm and being dishonest with the American people? Certainly there are many number of people, not just Democrats, who have suggested in the last 24 hours, that President Trump was dishonest with the American people.

That he knew more than he was letting on about how lethal this virus was about how sweeping its impacts could be, about how it could rewrite the rules of American society and frankly, take a lot of lives. There's real questions today, the questions the White House has to face that, if the President had been more forthright with the American people back in January, February, March, would his administration's response have been different?

Would the people's reactions have been different, and could some of these lives have been saved?

Brian: I'm glad you picked apart those two things, trying to calm people's fears and telling people the truth. I've been thinking about this too. I saw one of Trump supporters on TV yesterday compare this to FDR when FDR said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," so the country wouldn't panic, right? Part of that equation was that, FDR wasn't lying to the country about the seriousness of the Great Depression. He didn't say, "Oh, it's just a small correction in the market," or something like that.

Tomorrow's the anniversary of the 911 attacks. Rudy Giuliani, and I say this as a New Yorker, in his finest moment as mayor didn't calm New Yorkers by saying, nothing to see here. He did it by acknowledging the enormity of what was happening and unifying people. I'm just saying that getting people to avoid panic is not the same as downplaying, in this case, the science that he was talking about, behind the scenes to Bob Woodward. Do they have a response to that yet?

Jonathan: They haven't quite been that specific but you are right. These are two terrific examples, Giuliani, in 2001, and then out of what some of your listeners might think of him now, his performance in the weeks after the attacks was heroic by most estimates, and certainly, FDR who leveled with the American public about how dire things were in the depression, and later World War II. He tried to keep spirits high but in those fireside chats, he also was candid for the most part, about what the nation was facing.

That's not what the President did here. This is why there is a sense that this one could be significantly damaging to him politically because, of course, we have to use the lens here, he is running for re-election. The Election Day is under two months out. In fact, early voting has started in some states already including the battleground of North Carolina, but as you said in the intro, so many of these swirling scandals that dominate headlines for a day or so then come and go, without really changing anything.

It's the meme right there, LOL, nothing matters because it seems like things don't really drench President Trump. He was impeached this year, and most people forgot about it. This is different because the coronavirus pandemic is something, it's the one thing, one of the very few things, let's say, that has stuck to him. That has changed how people view him. We have seen his poll numbers take a hit. This is the greatest test he has faced.

It's the greatest test that the nation has faced, perhaps in decades, and certainly the greatest public health crisis Americans faced in 100 years.

This one does seem to be different. It also comes at a time when his reelection campaign is operating under this simple premise. They want to talk about anything else. They know right now, this election is not being perceived as a choice between Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

This election right now has been, to this point, has been simply a referendum on Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and polling suggests Americans largely disapprove. They have tried, Trump's campaign, to change the subject, whether it's to talk about Kenosha, to attack Biden, to talk about China, what any other cultural wedge issue that they can fight. They have said and their advisors have said to me, they want to talk and fight about anything else.

Any day when COVID-19 is not the dominant headline is a day they feel they can win. What this book has done, has put once more the coronavirus pandemic at the center of the national discourse. How the president handled it is what we're talking about and certainly, this book suggests that he handled it even worse than we knew.

Brian: Well, we'll see over time if it changes anybody's opinion about anything. I invited Trump supporters to call in and say if it changes anything for you, and here's one. David in Paramus, you're on WNYC. David, we appreciate you stepping in. Hi.

David: Brian, thanks for taking the time to take my call. I'm a little bit taken aback by your guest today. He seems to think that you have Trump painted into a corner, that he said things to famous Watergate author Bob Woodward, that maybe he thought wouldn't go out into the public air, which we all know, obviously, he knew that it would all be played at some point, but why play it today? What will be played tomorrow and what will be played over the next two months prior to the election?

He did this thing that he thought was best. That's why we elected him president, and that was to set a tone and keep the country at ease. He wasn't a factfinder. He's not a scientist. He's going on the best information that he had at the time that you had, that I had, that we all had, which was, what is the coronavirus and where is it going? I think for him to err on the side of not causing panic is a much better option, than telling the whole country, "Oh, this is going to be really, really bad."

I'd like to bring up the point with regard to 911. I remember, 19 years ago tomorrow, George Bush sitting in that classroom with that look on his face, when his aide whispered in his ear that the towers were attacked. George Bush didn't turn around and jump up and stop the classroom and tell America, run through the covers. It was a moment where he made the best decision with the facts that he had at hand, and he did keep the country from going into a panic. The comment with regard to panic on the Wall Street I feel it's also not appropriate. Back to you.

Brian: He's done so much to try to calm Wall Street above or else, it seems economically. David, let me follow-up on the very particular contradiction here, and you tell me if it doesn't bother you that he's saying-- I understand your point about not wanting to panic people, that part of the President's responsibility is to calm the country in the face of threats. If he knew more than we knew, he said, we all knew that early science while he was getting inside information from the experts, and even from the president of China, which was one of his sources for this.

If he knew that it was more deadly than the flu and he turned around and told everybody, it's not so you should go about your normal lives. Why isn't that like a doctor who sees that you have a potentially serious heart condition, let's say, and says, but don't do anything different. You don't have to change your diet. You don't have to exercise differently, whatever it is, and that has health consequences for you.

David: That's an excellent point. I won't say I'm not 100% fantastically appreciative of what he did on that day. I'm saying that I take with a grain of salt. I don't wake up in the morning and say, "Well, President Trump said this today, so I'm going to conduct my life the way that he said to." I feel strongly about not inciting panic. I think that's a tremendous responsibility.

To the young lady that lost her father, who I send my condolences to, that spoke at the Democratic National Convention, for Trump to say it's okay to go out for karaoke tonight and don't wear a mask, it just falls flat for me on its face. I've seen Facebook responses from people that I went to high school with, that feel strongly that this is the most momentous thing that they found that Trump did, that was so egregious, and his responsibility for the 190,000 deaths that have occurred. I don't blame the Trump administration. I wouldn't blame Biden Roosevelt or anybody else for an insidious pandemic that struck the world that we've never seen in our lifetimes, any more than I would blame you or anybody else. I think that we have to-- [crosstalk] Go ahead.

Brian: No. I thought you were wrapping up, and you know what, I'm going to leave it here. I really appreciate you calling in and call us again. Okay.

David: Will do Brian, pleasure talking to you. Have a great day.

Brian: You too. We're going to take a break. There's also a Bob Woodward controversy here, and I don't want to duck it. We're going to take that head-on when we continue with Jonathan Lemire AP White House correspondent after this.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we're talking about the revelations in the new book by journalist Bob Woodward about the Trump presidency called, Rage. Particularly that Trump believed as early as early February, that the Coronavirus was going to be more deadly than the flu, more deadly than even your strenuous flus, as he put it to Woodward at the time, but has gone on to downplay it and compare it more evenly to the flu, for example, in all this time, since. We're talking with Jonathan Lemire, AP White House correspondent.

There is also the Bob Woodward question. That's really a parallel to the Donald Trump question. I'm going to let a listener bring this up and frame the question because, frankly, this is what about half our listeners are calling with. Ron in Rockaway Beach are going to get to be the spokesperson for a lot of people who have the same question. Thank you for calling in.

Ron: Thank you, Brian. Thank you for everything you do. Your show gets me through most days here. Jonathan, thank you for your excellent journalism. I've seen you standing up and holding great questions up to Kylie McIntyre and to the president, even back as far as Helsinki. My question is, I equate what Bob Woodward has done, sort of like what John Bolton has done. That is Jonathan, had you known this information back in January and February.

I think thousands, if not tens of thousands of people have died since then because of this, as a journalist, would you not felt a responsibility to have come forward with this information immediately, rather than wait for your book to be published in September in order to make profits?

Jonathan: I won't speak for Bob Woodward beyond relaying what he has said, because that is certainly a question that has come up in the last day or so. Often just without speaking specifically here, we're just starting by as a matter, of course, a lot of interviews done for books are done on the idea of an embargo. The material in that interview is going to be safe for the publication of the book rather, than for, say, a daily newspaper story.

We see that all the time where people will sometimes, even a newspaper reporter will be writing a story, who covers a beat day to day, will do an interview. Some of it might be for that day story and the rest he puts in a file. He or she puts away for use in a book that may not see the light of day for a few months. That's largely how these things work, but you raise a question here because people have wondered about, if this Woodward had come forward, could lives have been saved.

Had he had perhaps broken this embargo, which we assume he has, although he has not actually said so himself. He spoke to one of my colleague's associated press yesterday and said that he needed to report it out. That it took time for him to verify what the president had said to him. I think we all recognize that president Trump is not always the most reliable narrator. Often, things he will say do not prove to be true whether he does so intentionally or not.

Woodward has said that he needed time to report out with other sources, and trip-double and triple check material in order to feel like it was worth going. Now, it's a matter of timing. That's obviously up to him, but he and the Washington post have had certainly defended his decision and his timing to do what he did.

Brian: It doesn't sound from his answers to your colleague at the AP and to, I guess, one of his colleagues at the Washington post, that he struggled with it very much. I would hope that if I were in that position, I would have at least struggled with it. If Woodward had Trump on tape saying something that important to public health on February 7th, like Kristin Urquiza's dad didn't get Coronavirus until June, because he was listening to Trump. I get saving stuff up for a big picture book, but I just don't know about this one.

Woodward is with the Washington post, Margaret Sullivan, the Washington post on media critic has now written this, "The chance, even if it's a slim chance that those revelations could have saved lives, is a powerful argument against waiting this long." There are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with in this case, if revealing Trump's duplicity on this could have changed people's behavior to be more cautious personally.

I ask, at least, why it didn't seem like Woodward was at least conflicted about it at the time and agonizing over it, to some degree. Let's take one more Trump supporter. I think Trump supporter, Jordan in Midtown. Jordan, you are on WNYC. Hi there.

Jordan: Hi Brian. I love your show. I listen to it every day. I work in the public policy sphere. My big issue with this, while I think the tapes are somewhat damaging, is that the House for Intelligence Committee, particularly Adam Schiff, knew about this virus starting in November. While there were plenty of opportunities to raise the alarm, nothing was said. We were pursuing a rogue impeachment, that many of us feel was a rogue impeachment.

Then moving forward to Blasio and Pelosi in February were advocating that people would go out, come out to train, to town and that's problematic. Say theoretically Trump did raise the alarm in February, but you've got people like the Blasio and Pelosi advocating go out. What does that say? Would there have been political consensus then. I think people can act with incomplete information, but they need to have information about that risk conveyed in a way that aligns naturally with how they think.

During the height of the pandemic in New York, I went out to Harlem to the outer boroughs. I surveyed things. I was amazed at how few people were wearing masks and taking the precautions that Governor Cuomo was advocating for. I don't think the political establishment did a good job of really changing people's behavior in meaningful ways.

Brian: Jordan, I want to ask you a follow up question, but I'm going to play one of the clips that we're hearing a lot in the press today, that actually the president is using to help make your case. They're citing things that yes, Nancy Pelosi was saying about go eat and Chinatown. Bill de Blasio was saying, even Anthony Fauci was saying at first, at very first, that they didn't think a lot of people in this country were going to die from Coronavirus.

Here's something that Joe Biden was saying early on that seemed to downplay the threat of Coronavirus. This is one that Trump refers to a lot. This is Biden on January 31st, after Trump announced his travel ban from China.

Joe Biden: This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysterical xenophobia and fearmongering, to lead the way instead of science.

Brian: Actually, I have to fact check myself, I'm not sure if that was before or after the China travel ban was announced, but certainly Biden was talking about Trump having a Zenophobic, meaning afraid of something that's coming from another country reaction. Jordan here's my question really, to be honest, my argument about this once the science emerged and changed, Cuomo changed his tune, De Blasio changed his tune, Pelosi changed her tune. Trump, not so much, apparently for a personal interest purposes. Do you disagree?

Jordan: I do disagree. I think taking science and putting it in one silo and always comparing it to that one point in time, it's not correct. Science is evolving, it's not an empirical truth and what we know now--

Brian: Which is my point. That it evolved and so people saw that it was more serious than they might've first thought.

Jordan: Sure, but now we know that it's not nearly as deadly as we thought then. I think vilifying people because they have different perspectives on science is not the solution either.

Brian: Just one more quick followup. You said, now the science tells us it's not as deadly as we thought then. We have 190,000 dead Americans.

Jordan: Yes, we [inaudible 00:29:46]. If we really wanted to control this pandemic, we should have started back in November and we should have cut off travel altogether from Europe and China.

Brian: Jordan, I'm going to leave it there. All right. I appreciate your call. Call us again. I don't think that last answer is really responsive to the question of what we learned after November and December, and into March and April, et cetera. Jonathan Lemire, we're running out of time. Let me give you, one more response, anything in the exchanges we've been having?

Jonathan: I think you hit it Brian, that I think a lot of people, public officials and public health experts, including Dr. Fauci understanding of the virus has evolved over time. I think that there were certainly mistakes made at all levels of government in the early weeks and months of this pandemic, because of a lack of knowledge as to what it was and how to handle it. What I think why the Woodward recordings are resonating like they are is, it seems the president did have more knowledge than he was letting on.

Again, I think it's that fine line that certainly, yes, he has portrayed himself, his words, as cheerleader in chief sometimes, to be a cheerleader for the country to keep morale high. That's fair. That's fine. That's part of the job description, but it also does require being honest with the American people.

It seems like he did not when suggesting, on a phone call with Woodward, that he knew that it affected more than just the elderly.

Yet days later, in a news conference the White House, suggests that children were immune that to say to Woodward, that he knew that it could be transmitted through the air and how much more dangerous that was. Then to continue to have enlarged indoor rallies of his own supporters in the following weeks, he had at least five or six, in the month of February after he told that to Woodward. That is why his comments are receiving such scrutiny and criticism today.

Whether it changes the equation or not for the election does indeed remain to be seen. He is the president who has a remarkable ability to shake off controversy, the remarks that would be damning for anyone else, he seems to glide past. Maybe that will happen here again, maybe it will not, but certainly I can say this, that this campaign entering the stretch run here, they know they're down to Joe Biden, not by a lot but they say they're down. This certainly doesn't help at the very least.

Brian: Jonathan Lemire AP White House correspondent. Thanks for coming out of the bullpen as you put it before for us. I will say that even though I think you're a Red Sox fan, you are the Mariano Rivera of relief pitchers for this show. That is the highest praise anyone could give someone coming out of the bullpen. Thank you very much, Johnathan.

Jonathan: I reject that comp as a Red Sox fan, I have to reject that.

 

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