WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is calling journalist Bob Woodward’s explosive new book “nasty stuff,” denying certain scenes in the book occurred.
The Washington Post on Tuesday published details from “Fear: Trump in the White House.”
Woodward quotes an exasperated Chief of Staff John Kelly doubting Trump’s mental faculties, declaring during one meeting, “We’re in Crazytown.”
The book said presidential aides plucked documents off Trump’s desk and thought he was often unaware of foreign policy basics.
Trump’s former lawyer in the Russia probe, John Dowd, is also said to have doubted Trump’s ability to avoid perjuring himself should he sit down with special counsel Robert Mueller.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Dowd said, “There was no so-called ‘practice session’ or ‘re-enactment’ of a mock interview at the Special Counsel’s office.”
He adds: “Further, I did not refer to the President as a “liar” and did not say that he was likely to end up in an ‘orange jumpsuit.'”
Kelly issued a statement of his own Tuesday, denying an account that he called the Trump an “idiot”
Kelly said, “The idea I ever called the president an idiot is not true.”
In a separate statement, the White House is dismissing the book as “nothing more than fabricated stories.”
Press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement: “This book is nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the President look bad.”
Trump spoke to the conservative Daily Caller Tuesday after details emerged about the book. Trump calls it “another bad book” and says Woodward has “a lot of credibility problems.”
The president also denies that senior aides took sensitive documents from his desk, saying, “there was nobody taking anything from me.”
Trump says he “probably would have preferred to speak to (Woodward), but maybe not. I think it probably wouldn’t have made a difference in the book.”
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