Donald Trump, the former president, has given at least 22 interviews to 17 different writers in an attempt to keep his name alive in the press as much as possible over the next few years, but two reporters who have written bombshell books revealing some of the worst things he’s said and done have been banned.
The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, who separately have written damning books on Trump, will not be invited to Mar-a-Lago to be wined and dined by the former president, unlike far right wing editor at The Federalist Mollie Mollie Hemingway, who was gifted with not one but two interviews, Axios reports.
Woodward recorded numerous interviews with Trump in the Oval Office, where in February of 2020 Trump warned him just how dangerous and deadly the coronavirus was, and that it was airborne, facts he was downplaying in public. He even admitted, on tape, he wasn’t telling the public the truth.
Michael Wolff, Maggie Haberman, Michael Bender, and former Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway have also been granted two interviews.
“Sources tell me Trump makes each author feel they’re getting something special. And some of them are: Many of the nuggets will definitely make news. But there appears to be quite a bit of overlap in the ‘scoops’ Trump is dishing out,” Axios’ Mike Allen reports. “The interviews are mostly on the record, for use when the books publish. So Trump, who has rarely been heard on non-Fox outlets since leaving office, will see himself quoted constantly over the next year.”
The upcoming book from Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Axios previously reported, will be “on the final days of the Trump presidency and the first phase of the Biden presidency.”