Rage, Bob Woodward's exposive book on Donald Trump

Reviewed by Margaretta wa Gacheru (September 2020)

Bob Woodward is a consummate investigative journalist with the prestigious ‘Washington Post’. He made his name back in the 1970s, breaking the Watergate scandal which led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon.

But Nixon was only the first. Woodward made his name professionally for being the only political reporter to cover and write definitive books about nine American presidents in his 50 years of journalism.

His latest book, ‘Rage’, could be the most remarkable and controversial book of all.  It was described by Donald Trump as “a political hit job’, despite Trump’s having agreed to conduct 17 taped interviews with the reporter. Plus, a number of those interviews were initiated by Trump who would call Woodward in the middle of the night just to chat about the book.

It was Trump, in fact who told Woodward that he had conversations with the Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping early in 2020, and that Xi had informed Trump how deadly was the coronavirus. What was worse, he said it was airborne.  On tape, Trump even told Woodward the virus was ‘a plague’.

Yet that hasn’t stopped the 45^th president from telling his followers the virus is ‘a hoax’ devised by the Democrats to scare Americans and steal the November 3^rd election.

All of Trump’s contradictions are brought to light in ‘Rage’, a term embraced by the President who admitted he often elicited ‘rage’ in others; but he didn’t mind.

‘Rage’ is Woodward’s second book on Trump and is something of a sequel to ‘Fear’. He’d concluded ‘Fear’, hoping Trump would not be confronted with a crisis, since he was unlikely to handle it well. Sadly, the COVID pandemic has confirmed the journalist’s worst fear.

The crisis currently confronting the US is horrifyingly out of control. The death-count a day before the election was over 230,000 with those having contracted it more than 9.3 million.

Even President Trump contracted COVID. Yet he still claims it’s a hoax and will swiftly disappear once the Democrats lose the election. Trump doesn’t care that 74,236 Americans contacted COVID on November 1^st alone. All he cares about, claim his critics, is winning (or stealing) the presidential election.

By the time people read this review, the world may already know who won the presidency. Possibly not however, since Trump had refused to tell journalists, including Woodward, whether he would abide by the democratic wishes of the American people if he lost the election. Instead, he has primed his followers to prepare for action if he isn’t named winner.

The Woodward book is one of a multitude of books recounting the problematic character and corruption of Donald Trump. Books by his niece Mary Trump, his former Hit-man lawyer Michael Cohen, and Trump’s top National Security Advisor, John Bolton, all present damning portraits of the man consistently described as corrupt, reckless, uninformed, petty, and narcissistic.

Woodward’s might be the kindest of them all. Yet even he concludes ‘Rage’ by noting Trump is ‘unfit’ to be president of the USA.