Bob Woodward on His Trump Tapes

The New Yorker Radio Hour

Bob Woodward is not one to editorialize. But, during his interviews with Donald Trump at the time of the COVID-19 crisis, Woodward found himself shouting at the President—explaining how to make a decision and trying to browbeat him into listening to public-health experts. Woodward has released audio recordings of some of their interviews in a new audiobook called “The Trump Tapes,” which documents details of Trump’s state of mind, and also of Woodward’s process and craft. “I could call him anytime, [and] he would call me,” Woodward tells David Remnick. His wife, Elsa Walsh, “used to joke [that] there’s three of us in the marriage.” And, in the wake of Damar Hamlin’s accident, the staff writer Louisa Thomas talks with David Remnick about an uncomfortable truth: football’s danger to players is part of its singular popularity.