President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday said that White House staffers quoted as ripping the president in veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book should “go get another job.”
“If they said it, they should be questioning why they are there,” Giuliani told CNBC in an interview. “Why don’t they go get another job? That’s the kind of disloyalty that leads to you leaving, not staying and undermining the president.”
Giuliani also sought to cast doubt on the credibility of Woodward’s reporting, according to CNBC. The network noted that Woodward has defended his reporting, saying he “taped people for hundreds of hours.”
{mosads}The Washington Post on Tuesday published excerpts from Woodward’s book, “Fear: Trump in the White House.” The book paints the picture of a dysfunctional White House and describes a number of conflicts between Trump and his aides.
The book claims that Trump called Attorney General Jeff Sessions “mentally retarded” and called former chief of staff Reince Priebus “a little rat.” It also claims that current chief of staff John Kelly called Trump “unhinged” and an “idiot.”
Woodward writes in the book that Defense Secretary James Mattis told associates that Trump has the knowledge of a “fifth- or sixth-grader” on the subject of North Korea, according to the Post.
Woodward wasn’t able to interview Trump for the book. The president told Woodward in a phone conversation last month that he would have sat for an interview but said nobody informed him that Woodward wanted to interview him.
The book — which Woodward said is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files and documents — is scheduled to hit shelves next week.