![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.kumasionlinegh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Trump-said-of-Woodwards-work.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump has condemned a book on his White House by renowned Watergate journalist Bob Woodward as a \u201ccon on the public\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump\u2019s chief of staff and defence secretary, in responses posted by the president on Twitter, described the book as \u201cpathetic\u201d and \u201cfiction\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the book, senior aides are quoted as saying they hid sensitive documents to prevent Mr Trump signing them.<\/p>\n
They are quoted as calling him an \u201cidiot\u201d and a \u201cliar\u201d.<\/p>\n
The book \u2013\u00a0Fear: Trump in the White House, scheduled for release on 11 September \u2013 reveals a chaotic administration having a \u201cnervous breakdown of executive power\u201d.<\/p>\n
Woodward is a widely respected and veteran journalist who helped expose President Richard Nixon\u2019s role in the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
How has the president responded?<\/strong><\/p>\n He sent out a series of tweets carrying his own views, along with statements from Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, chief of staff John Kelly and White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.<\/p>\n Mr Trump says quotes attributed to Mr Mattis and Mr Kelly were \u201cmade up frauds, a con on the public. Likewise other stories and quotes\u201d.<\/p>\n He says the book is \u201calready discredited\u201d with \u201cso many lies and phony sources\u201d, rejecting an allegation that he had used the terms \u201cmentally retarded\u201d and \u201cdumb Southerner\u201d to describe Attorney General Jeff Sessions.<\/p>\n The statement from Mr Mattis describes the book as \u201ca product of someone\u2019s rich imagination\u201d and adds: \u201cThe contemptuous words about the president attributed to me in Woodward\u2019s book were never uttered by me or in my presence.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement from Mr Kelly says: \u201cThe idea I ever called the president an idiot is not true\u2026 He always knows where I stand and he and I both know this story is total BS\u2026 This is a pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Sanders said the book was \u201cnothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the president look bad\u201d.<\/p>\n In an interview with the Daily Caller, Mr Trump said that \u201cit\u2019s just another bad book\u201d, adding that Woodward \u201chas a lot of credibility problems\u201d.<\/p>\n What are the allegations in the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the main claims is that current and former aides kept sensitive documents off his desk to prevent him from signing them, or took different actions to those demanded by the president.<\/p>\n This amounts to an \u201cadministrative coup d\u2019\u00e9tat\u201d, Woodward says.<\/p>\n The book says Mr Trump had ordered the Pentagon to arrange the assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s [expletive] kill him! Let\u2019s go in. Let\u2019s kill the [expletive] lot of them,\u201d Mr Trump is reported to have told Mr Mattis.<\/p>\n The book says Mr Mattis acknowledged Mr Trump\u2019s request but then, after the conversation, told an aide he would not do \u201cany of that\u201d.<\/p>\n Mr Mattis is also quoted as saying Mr Trump had the understanding of \u201ca fifth- or sixth-grader\u201d \u2013 the age of 10 or 11 \u2013 in understanding foreign affairs.<\/p>\n Woodward says chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and White House staff secretary Rob Porter removed documents from the president\u2019s desk to keep Mr Trump from signing them.<\/p>\n The documents would have allowed the president to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement and a trade deal with South Korea.<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt like we were walking along the edge of the cliff perpetually,\u201d Mr Porter is quoted as saying.<\/p>\n In other excerpts:<\/p>\n \u2013<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US President Donald Trump has condemned a book on his White House by renowned Watergate journalist Bob Woodward as a \u201ccon on the public\u201d. Mr Trump\u2019s chief of staff and defence secretary, in responses posted by the president on Twitter, described the book as \u201cpathetic\u201d and \u201cfiction\u201d. In the book, senior aides are quoted as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Syrian](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/1474D\/production\/_103298738_048771842-1.jpg\")
\n