President Trump continued his campaign against Watergate journalist Bob Woodward ahead of next week’s release of the book “Fear: Trump in the White House.”
“The Woodward book is a scam. I don’t talk the way I am quoted,” Trump tweeted Friday morning. “If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up. The author uses every trick in the book to demean and belittle. I wish the people could see the real facts – and our country is doing GREAT!”
Woodward’s book, a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the Trump White House, includes anecdotes suggesting frequent sniping among members of the administration.
{mosads}The book details incidents such as Trump calling Attorney General Jeff Sessions “mentally retarded” and White House chief of staff John Kelly saying the president is an “idiot.”
Woodward’s reporting also included Defense Secretary James Mattis saying Trump has an understanding of the Korean Peninsula on par with that of a “fifth or sixth grader,” and former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn stealing a piece of paper off of Trump’s desk to prevent him from withdrawing from a trade deal with South Korea.
Trump and others have denied those incidents took place.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders slammed the book as a work of fiction.
The Friday morning tweet came about an hour before the public release of a monthly employment report that showed 201,000 jobs were added in August while the unemployment rate held at 3.9 percent.