Maybe. Incredibly dumb. I know Trump has a thousand lives but this has to be the final nail in the coffin.

Twitter comments would suggest otherwise

That recording should be in every Biden ad for the rest of the campaign.

Everything the GOP is doing is with an eye towards fucking the country if Biden wins. This tax deferral, the new stimulus, the ACA lawsuit, drafting legislation to make it illegal for the Fed to loan money, everything.

dola

GOP: He didn't do it.
Trump: I did it.

GOP: He didn't mean to do it.
Trump: I wish I'd done it sooner.

GOP: He did it for benign reasons.
Trump: I did it for the worst reasons.

GOP: He's sorry.
Trump: I'm never sorry.

GOP: He's chastened.
Trump: I'm doing it again tomorrow.

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) February 5, 2020

It's not going to put a dent in his base. His base believes this is a cultural war that they have to win no matter the cost. This will make it more difficult for him to pull the few remaining undecideds and that's probably the most we can ask for with Trump.

Why would this time be any different? His zealots will just pivot to "see? he didn't want to create a panic"

SI

These tapes mean nothing. Trump will continue to not experience any major sustaining blowback.

The talking points are that actions speak louder than words and just look all he did to take it seriously while the same people downplay the severity of COVID because that's been Trump's talking point for 6 months.

Correct. Had a 70+ year old aunt-in-law post something on Facebook yesterday that was akin to "if the liberals win, it is the end of America. Trump may not be the man we like, but he is the man God sent to save America."

It doesn't matter what he does at this point. He could suspend elections or roll out tanks on election day to keep blacks from voting. It literally doesn't matter.

But we know that isn't true. No, he won't lose half his support, but he's already lost a few points and he can't win without expanding his support from 2016. Every time he loses a tenth of a point or something matters. If he has lost 2 or 3 points of his 2016 support, he can't win.

He is a bigger idiot than I'd ever imagined, and I'd imagined him to be a substantial idiot.


Just. Wow.

I agree, it won't hurt him significantly.

Woodward's timing is curious though. It would have been better if this came out mid-Oct which gives Trump less time to react.

OK, if you want to nitpick, nothing he does matters to the 40%.

I was wondering about this too, except it feels like Biden is losing a little momentum now, so I'm thinking maybe they did it to stunt any momentum Trump might be picking up.

This right here. (And this is true for all of these things that come up and some of y'all keep syaing "IT WON'T MATTER!!!") Yes, he SHOULD lose virtually all of his support for this one, but he won't. However, it's reasonable to assume that it'll move more undecideds to Biden (heck, my wife is one..she's already told me this is the final straw) and some Trump supporters to third party or Biden. How many? Hard to tell. But a non-zero loss of his voters and a non-zero number of third-party voters who switch to Biden for a guy who won by a razor-thin margin and hasn't expanded his base? That's important.

I wonder why Woodward wouldn't say something earlier if he could have prevent people from needlessly dying.

I do not want to distract from the fact that our President is an immoral grifter and half the country is perfectly okay with that.

I'm angrier at Woodward than Trump. I already knew Trump was a scumbag of the highest order, so I'd expect this from him. But Woodward held this information until now...to sell a book? ...so his favored candidate can win the election? That's absolutely inexcusable.

Dems can't appoint SCOTUS Justices if you mismanage COVID so badly that everyone is dead so there's no one left to appoint.

We’ve received a whistleblower complaint alleging DHS suppressed intel reports on Russian election interference, altered intel to match false Trump claims and made false statements to Congress.

This puts our national security at risk. We will investigate:https://t.co/Z7npo3P6zv

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) September 9, 2020

Two scandals in one day that would destroy any other presidency, we just call it Wednesday.

I don't know if it's 'candidate' related. Woodward has written an in depth book about every President since H.W. And I don't think his "Obama's Wars" was all that flattering to Obama.

But Woodward is also an 'old style' journalist, who believes his job is to report the story fully, even if revealing parts of it earlier may have saved lives.

If so, then I'll let Lt. Dan Kaffee respond for me.


https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/3159b07...7-c07a4b199022

Woodward is a grade a piss of sh*t. He should have said something the moment he heard Trump peddling lies. His failure to say anything probably cost some lives.

A politician acting in craven self-interest is truly an unprecedented occurence.


Sometimes the simplest, understated answers are the best. Like apples of gold in settings of silver you might say. Well played.

I'm also confused by the Woodward outrage. It seems we are simultaneously saying it won't change anything even now, but yet he cost lives by not saying something earlier. Which is it?

Jesus Christ. This is madness.

How is their meddling with weaponized propaganda not an act of war? WTF.

Let me shut up smh.

Can't recall if I posted it here, but a good friend lost both of her parents to COVID within a five-day period this summer. They were conservatives who didn't take the virus seriously, but weren't by any means full-blown MAGA; they were the type who could have been swayed.



I'd like to make Bob Woodward sit down and explain to my friend why he thought he should hold this information for 7 months.

Funny thing is that Biden just released a major economic plan today.

And it will get no coverage because Trump is increasing his rate of "would destroy any other President" scandals to over one a day.

One of Trump's skills--from the 2016 Primary onward--is that his opponents can get no traction whatsoever. We might be praising Trump. We might be cursing Trump. But we are always talking about Trump.

Biden's speech trashing Trump was fantastic today. I doubt it'll get much play aside from being played live today.

edit: In a pleasant surprise, CNN is discussing Biden's speech.

Romney comes out HARD against Trump's virus revelations.

Not gonna be enough to change the narrative, Don.

I will be announcing a list of future potential Supreme Court Justices at 3:30 P.M. Eastern from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 9, 2020

Do people really think that would have changed anything? He's been caught lying incessantly for years. Bob Woodward wasn't going to change the position of your friends parents. They were going to sacrifice themselves for Trump regardless.

It could have forced Trump to change his tactics if it had been disclosed early on, though. He could have been forced to acknowledge the threat before March, perhaps allowing/forcing him to somewhat save face by doing a 180 on his messaging. Instead, he was simply content to stick with the "no problems here" messaging to keep the economy and stock market up in hopes the virus wouldn't be really bad so he could coast to re-election.

That changed when the market started tanking, he gave that mid-March "hostage" press conference which caused the market to REALLY tank, but by then he was so far down the path to "this is going to go away soon" that he couldn't walk it back because, you know, true tough guys don't admit they are wrong.

I'd argue that if a medical expert like Fauci didn't move the needle for people who didn't want to take COVID seriously, then Woodward's tapes wouldn't have either.

In February? It absolutely would have changed a lot and would have saved lives. If Trump gets out in front of this with his supporters the anti-vaxxers don't find an ally and the nonsense doesn't reach the point it has. Releasing it now does nothing though. His supporters are far too gone. Trump could go out to the rose garden and say it on live TV and most could say it didn't happen or claim he was misunderstood.

People were generally listening to Fauci initially. That changed as Trump, Fox News, and other GOP continually attacked him to keep up with thr Trump narrative.

You think this is on Woodward? There were lots and lots of people within the administration that knew this as well and did nothing.

Haven’t we now reached the point where Trump has to call HIMSELF a disgruntled failing hack he hardly knows?

— Dennis Herring (@dcherring) September 9, 2020

Especially when he reveals the list

The Coronavirus
That Covington Catholic Kid
The guy with the gun in St. Louis (but not his wife)
Putin
Don Jr.
A name randomly selected from anyone who donates $100 or more dollars to his campaign by midnight tonight.

I think it's fair to question why Woodward waited to release these tapes, but I also think that the earlier he released them the less of an effect they would've had.

I think it's revisionist history to suggest these tapes would've changed minds in February.....in February covid was still largely an unknown horror story from across the oceans & I'd suspect this tape's release would've been largely dismissed at the time and served literally zero purpose & forgotten, rather than run up the flag pole. To some degree these tapes only became remarkable once we passed tipping points of deaths, knowledge gained & consistent administration response.

Sure Trump could have gotten in front of it if he wanted, but Woodward bringing this out would have had zero impact. Trump would have just attacked him and called it all fake news and his supporters would have followed.

Any judge willing to grant him immunity from his numerous wrongdoings
Judge Judy
Judge Dredd

SI

Doesn't matter if it would have worked. You do the right thing. Period. Consequences be damned.It's not JUST on Woodward, but sitting on the tapes for 7 months is 100% inexcusable. The fact that other scumbags sat on it doesn't excuse him sitting on it (with evidence.)

Also, how poor does your grasp of American history have to be to think "I, as President, will confess gross malfeasance to Bob Woodward" is a good idea?

Yeah, this is specifically what I meant by this...

So Trump gave Woodward 18 interviews for the book. This is probably just a drop in the bucket of stuff he has on tape, not that it will matter to anyone at this point.

The Bolton book episode suggested that the timing & release of such things might not be entirely under Woodward's control, for whatever that is worth.

You're wrong and this shows a lack of understanding for the tenets of basic journalism. Woodward is old school and you see the story through. When you have unprecedented access and the chance to expose a President who is incriminating himself on god knows what else 18 separate more times for a larger expose you don’t sabotage that for one tidbit that would have made literally zero impact had it come out in Feb/March/April/May/June.

Read up on Watergate some time.

"They were conservatives who didn't take the virus seriously,"


But its a journalist's fault? The enemy of the people?



I swear these are some logic-bending times we live in.

Saving lives >>>> respecting the tenets of basic journalism