Savannah Guthrie Presses Bob Woodward for Sitting On Tapes Months After Trump’s Public Downplaying Coronavirus

Bob Woodward continued the promotional tour of his new tell-all book Rage, based on nearly two dozen on-the-record interview with President Donald Trump. On Monday morning, he appeared on the TODAY Show, and host Savanah Guthrie held Woodward’s feet to the fire over criticism he withheld critical information about Trump’s knowledge of Covid-19 and the duplicity with which he publicly addressed the public health crisis.

“The president told you way back on February 7th that this coronavirus was airborne, that it was five times more deadly than the flu,” Guthrie asserted. “As you well know, you’ve been criticized for not releasing that information until now.” She then turned the screws a bit, noting “the president has criticized you, other commentators, one said on Twitter said nearly 200,000 because neither Donald Trump nor Bob Woodward wanted to risk anything substantial to keep the country informed.” She then flatly asked, “why didn’t you publish this information until now?”

“Because in February, I thought it was all about China,” Woodward explained. “Because the president had told me about a discussion with Chinese President Xi and, if you look at what was known in February, the virus was not on anyone’s mind, no one was suggesting changing behavior. Then when it exploded in March, as you know, there were 30,000 new cases a day.”  Woodward ultimately gave himself a pass, saying, “publishing something at that point would not have been telling people anything they didn’t know. They knew very clearly that it was dangerous.”

Guthrie followed by reminding her guest that “you knew right then and there there was a contradiction between what he told you and what he was telling the public.”

“If there was any suggestion I had that that [the coronavirus threat] was about the United States, I would have, of course, published,” Woodward revealed. “I think I have public health public safety responsibility.”

Watch above via NBC.

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