09.17.2018

Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein on the Trump Administration

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the legendary duo who held President Nixon to account, join the program. Forty years after Watergate, they’ve turned their attention to President Trump. They join Christiane Amanpour to discuss whether history is repeating itself.

Read Transcript EXPAND

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: But, Bob, I need to ask you because you also kind of criticized the Press Writ Large over the Trump coverage. And you’ve said, “I just think too many people have lost their perspective and become emotionally unhinged about Trump. I can understand that but that’s not the way the media should response. The media should respond with what really happened.” You know, what do you mean by that and how should the media be responding?

WOODWARD: Well, I think it’s very clear. You know, sometimes people get in a mode, particularly on television, of self-satisfaction and kind of a smugness about it all. As Carl has said, you look at the Trump White House and what’s going on, we need to have a wake-up call about it and there should be no joy or comfort that people feel, whether in the press or citizens. This is — as I describe it, this is a full-fledged nervous breakdown. And if you know anything about nervous breakdowns, they’re tough on the individual and an institution, let alone a White House, a whole administration, as I quote people in books saying, “We’re teetering around on the edge,” and there is no doubt about this. You — and you can see it when people who defend the president, fine, let them have their say, and they come out and give this portrait of like the president himself has, the well-oiled machine. Well, that’s just not so. It is provably not so.

About This Episode EXPAND

Christiane Amanpour interviews Bob Woodward, author of “Fear: Trump in the White House” and Associate Editor, The Washington Post and Carl Bernstein, Watergate Journalist and CNN Political Analyst; Sarah Jessica Parker, Actress and Co-founder of SJP for Hogarth and Fatima Farheen Mirza, Author of “A Place for Us”; Walter Isaacson interviews Alex Stamos, Former Chief Security Officer, Facebook.

LEARN MORE