The revelations from Bob Woodward’s tapes of Trump admitting that he knew how dangerous COVID-19 truly was, and that he consciously lying through his teeth to “not cause panic” are justifiably enraging. While we all undoubtedly knew that Trump was clearly misleading the public, these tapes are the smoking gun, showing that back in February, he knew what the virus could actually do, and how much harm it could cause.
But while Trump’s actions and this proof is definitely the main story to take away, there is a smaller element that shouldn’t be ignored. Woodward had this confession back in February, before there were any lockdowns in place, when Trump was still getting through his sham impeachment trial. He kept on getting more and more conversations with Trump, in order to build things up for his new book. Woodward has been getting flack from both parties for this, saying (though with different contexts from Republicans than Democrats) that if Woodward felt this was an important discovery, he should’ve let it out back then, and reported it to the public.
Woodward’s defense has been that he needed to “verify” Trump’s statements, saying, “he lies all the time, so how would you know if he’s telling the truth at all?” He also says that “a book has a certain impact that one concise news article doesn’t.” But many, especially the more liberal critics, are saying that Woodward should’ve jettisoned the book to break these important revelations about Trump’s comments and said “I have the tapes,” or merely farmed out the reporting to his old employer, The Washington Post, and given that story to other reporters to chase down while he kept at the book. The belief here, in this line of thinking, is that Woodward had a moral obligation to inform the public that COVID was a serious threat, that Trump had conceded as much to him, and that thousands of lives could’ve been saved by flushing Trump out and possibly getting Trump formally admit as such so that even the MAGA crowd would’ve woken up to the threat. By not doing so, Woodward put the money of his book sales ahead of his ethics, which is thus considered a disturbing betrayal of his reputation and legacy in the Watergate era and his work with Carl Bernstein.
Others say this is an “ahistorical” reading, that it would’ve done no good, that Trump would’ve just doubled down on his lies, and Woodward’s reporting would’ve been lost with all the numerous scandals that would’ve destroyed any other presidency, and America would’ve been numb to the news, and Trump arguably could’ve rallied, whereas its reveal now has a significant effect on his reelection chances.
While the most important thing is arguably the fact that we have rock-solid proof of Trump’s mendacity and that he completely betrayed the nation by refusing to speak publicly about what he knew all along, the fact does remain that if you look at things a certain way, Woodward may or may not also have the blood of nearly 200,000 deaths on his hands. Thus, what should he have done about what he knew, when he knew it?