It hasn't officially been released yet, but a book written by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward is already making headlines and it’s topping Amazon’s best sellers list.
Fear: Trump in the White House is the latest in a series of books giving an inside account of the Trump administration.
In copies leaked to reporters, Woodward portrays a toxic White House work environment, with staff who became accustomed to working around the president, who they described as unstable and uninformed.
In one excerpt from the book, Woodward reports Trump’s then-personal attorney John Dowd was convinced Trump would perjure himself if he interviewed with Special Counsel Robert Mueller during the Russia investigation, advising the president against it, saying, "It's either that or an orange jumpsuit.”
The book goes on to state Dowd said, "I’m not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot." Furthermore, it claimed Dowd expressed concern that foreign leaders would see the interview transcript and say, "I told you he was an idiot."
Dr. Robert Hazan, the chair of political science at Metropolitan State University of Denver, says the book could bring national security to the forefront of debate.
“I think [it] definitely creates a perception that, you know, we have a leadership that is lacking, and perhaps, you know, words like competence capability,” says Hazan. “The trust issue can become a major issue.”
The book paints a picture of Trump advisors stunned by the president’s lack of knowledge on major issues. And in one account, Woodward writes an advisor "stole" a letter from Trump’s desk that the president had planned to sign, telling a colleague that he had to "protect the country" and that Trump never realized the letter was gone.
Woodward said Trump declined to be interviewed for the book. Instead, the president called it another “bad book,” saying Woodward, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, has "had a lot of credibility problems."