President Trump is livid at the betrayal and stunning allegations in Bob Woodward’s forthcoming "Fear," but limited in his ability to fight back because most of the interviews were caught on hundreds of hours of tape, officials tell Axios.Why would the existence of tapes slow Trump down? He's known to have suggested that the Access Hollywood video was fabricated and, more recently, that NBC doctored the interview in which he effectively confessed to obstruction of justice in the firing of James Comey.
However, in those cases he didn't offer a "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" defense in real time. In fact, after the Access Hollywood video came out, he made a public statement of remorse.
If he knew better, he'd realize that Woodward squirrels away his source material -- he's released a tape of a conversation he had with Trump that wasn't used for the book, but if his past habits are predictive, he won't release any of the tapes or transcripts on which the book is based. Trump is probably free to challenge as many specific claims as he pleases.
But maybe his advisers fear that Woodward might change his methods and release a tape or two. And that might be enough to strike fear into Trump and prevent him from issuing more than general challenges.
On the other hand, maybe Trump isn't doing a point-by-point rebuttal because the news stories about the book were simply too long for him to read. Even though the stories feature his name repeatedly, he might not have gotten all the way through them. So how can he reply in detail?
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UPDATE:
Trump getting put in what Giuliani calls an "evidence trap" where people could be led to think he's an idiot just because abundant evidence proves it. So unfair! https://t.co/kTTILo4AxB
— Yasphalt Jungle (@Yastreblyansky) September 5, 2018
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