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Trump Vows a ‘Real Book’ on White House, Slams Woodward Account

Trump Vows a `Real Book' on White House, Slams Woodward Account

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump promised to write a book on his administration that sets the record straight, as he continued lashing out at the planned release of Bob Woodward’s new book on Tuesday.

"The Woodward book is a Joke - just another assault against me, in a barrage of assaults, using now disproven unnamed and anonymous sources," Trump said in a posting on Twitter Monday morning. "Many have already come forward to say the quotes by them, like the book, are fiction. Dems can’t stand losing. I’ll write the real book!"

Watergate investigative reporter Woodward’s new book, "Fear: Trump in the White House," details a chaotic West Wing in which some former staffers actively deceive and undermine Trump’s orders -- because they fear his impulses endanger the country.

The book’s scheduled release on Tuesday follows an anonymous op-ed published last week in the New York Times describing senior administration officials’ attempts to thwart the president in a “resistance” movement to protect the nation. The two pieces dealt Trump a one-two punch in what is perhaps the toughest stretch of his presidency.

Since the excerpts’ release, Trump has called the book a "scam" and said he doesn’t speak the way he’s quoted. He has questioned whether Woodward was "a Dem operative" and said that the "book has already been refuted and discredited by General (Secretary of Defense) James Mattis and General (Chief of Staff) John Kelly. Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public."

Woodward, in appearances to promote the new book, has defended his portrayal of Trump as an unfit president whose aides intervened to prevent catastrophic decisions. Woodward said he interviewed more than 100 people, including one person nine times. He said people in the administration are worried the president will sign things or give orders that threaten U.S. or world security and finances.

In one episode, Woodward recounts how top staffers worked behind the scenes to thwart his August 2017 proposal to pull the U.S. out of Nafta, the World Trade Organization and a trade deal with South Korea.

Woodward told NBC that Mattis and Kelly made “political statements to protect their jobs” when they denied making quotations attributed to them in his book.

Since his reporting for the Washington Post with Carl Bernstein led former President Richard Nixon to resign in the mid-1970’s, Woodward has won two Pulitzer Prizes and authored 18 best-selling books.

Trump has authored many books, including the best-selling auto-biography "The Art of the Deal" in 1987. But that book -- like most of his others -- was written along with a ghost writer, in this case Tony Schwartz.

More recently, Trump has accused Woodward of fabricating quotes and questioned whether U.S. libel laws could be changed so that people who believe they have been wronged would be in a better position to seek “retribution.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Derek Wallbank at dwallbank@bloomberg.net, Mike Dorning, Joshua Gallu

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.