Aides ‘appalled’ by Donald Trump’s ignorance on Korea stole letter from his desk, damning new Bob Woodward book says
Award-winning journalist Bob Woodward depicts a White House inner circle alarmed by an unpredictable and incurious president
US President Donald Trump’s aides had to steal a letter on South Korea from his desk to avoid jeopardising a top-secret programme and explain how removing US troops from the country could lead to world war three, such is the president’s ignorance, a new book has reportedly revealed.
Trump did not understand the need for a special intelligence operation in South Korea that allows the US to detect a North Korean missile launch within just seven seconds, versus 15 minutes from Alaska, said The Washington Post, citing veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s upcoming book, Fear: Trump in the White House.
Former top economic adviser Gary Cohn so feared that the programme would be at risk if Trump signed a letter formally withdrawing the US from a South Korean trade agreement that he stole the letter from the Oval Office desk, said CNN, which also obtained a copy of Woodward’s book.
“Appalled” by the possibility of Trump signing the letter, Cohn told an associate that he snatched it in an effort to prevent the president from seeing it, the book recounts.
“I wouldn't let him see it. He's never going to see that document. Got to protect the country,” the book quotes Cohn as saying.
Woodward, an associate editor at The Washington Post, describes Trump’s lack of curiosity and knowledge about world affairs and his contempt for the mainstream perspectives of military and intelligence leaders in the 448-page book, which is based on interviews with administration officials and other principals, the Post said.
The book describes a National Security Council meeting on January 19 in which Trump questioned the necessity of the US military presence in South Korea, along with the early warning system to detect a North Korean missile and even the need to spend resources in the region at all.