Bob Woodward: Trump Has Very Little Idea What’s Going on With Race Issues in This Country

Woodwardpalooza continued into its second week as the celebrated journalist continued making TV appearances and releasing new segments of his recorded conversations with President Donald Trump. In this episode, author Bob Woodward reveals that the president has “very little idea what’s going on with race issues in this country.”

This moment came during the author’s first appearance on a cable news morning show Wednesday morning since he began promoting his new book Rage. The new tell-all book, and second in which Woodward has written on the Trump White House, is based primarily on 19 (!) on-the-record conversations with President Trump. Audio recordings that have come from these interviews have dominated the news cycle over the past two weeks.

In his first question to Woodward, Morning Joe contributor Eddie Glaude, Jr. flatly asked if he believes Trump is a racist. Woodward effectively punted the tough questioning by re-sharing a story of how the president didn’t think the white privilege that he and Woodward benefited on their rise to fame and success. Glaude’s later followed that question by returning to the “racial reckoning” the country is currently experiencing after the killing of unarmed people of color like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Glaude asked if Woodward believes Trump is exploiting Black Lives Matter and law and order for his political gain, or he’s actually “committed to a certain understanding of race that animates how he understands race and politics? ”

Woodward was more open to the broader asking of a sensitive subject of a potentially racist president, though he made clear that “can’t get in his head.” Woodward then declared that in his esteem, President Trump has “very little understanding and idea what’s going on in his country on the race issue and many issues.”

Woodward then pivoted to a story reported by former Defense Secretary General Jim Mattis, who claimed that everything that comes out of the White House does not come from a conversation with well-informed people. Instead, it is “all directed by Donald Trump,” Woodward claimed. “One man band.”

Watch above via MSNBC.