Transcript: Woodward & Costa On The Peril Of Trump

Two of the planet's best reporters uncover more details about the Trump administration.

This may be the most significant conversation I’ve recorded on the podcast. It’s a civil, careful examination of the core political question we face today: how can we save liberal democracy from becoming tyranny? The skill with which Bob Woodward and now Robert Costa have put together a chronology of the Trump administration should remind us of how truly grave the threat was — and is. No hyperbole here; just brutal realism and a refusal to deny what is staring us in the face.

This episode originally aired on October 15, 2021. You can listen to it here. Subscribers can watch a video of the conversation halfway down this page. Some money quotes:

• Woodward: “[The Washington Post] gave me a tryout, which I failed, but realized I loved the work and worked at a weekly paper and the Post hired me back in September of 1971 … nine months before Watergate.”

• Woodward: “The truth really matters … It doesn’t come in a 24-hour news cycle or a tweet. It takes a long time to get as close to the truth as possible.”

• Costa: “It became so apparent based on the reporting — and this is to me the red flag for democracy — that Trump was anything but passive. He was driving this at the top.”

• Costa: “When we talk to people who are in Congress, one of the big takeaways is that Congress has been diminished … You really wonder, what is the power of Congress now to investigate and to have these kind of hearings?”

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Andrew: Hi there, and welcome to a pretty special edition of the Dishcast. I have here two of the best reporters in the world, which is a real honor. We're going to talk about the book and more. The book Peril, the last of your first term Trump books, assuming that there might be a second, which I think is a possibility at this point.

I have Robert Costa and Bob Woodward, no less, in the Dishcast studio. We're actually back in DC now from Ptown and I can actually look at the faces of these two people in real time and in real flesh! So thank you so much, the two of you, for coming.

Woodward: Thank you.

Costa: Thank you.

Andrew: I want to start with the question that I do for everyone here, which is to tell me a little bit about where you're from and how you've got to be where you are.

I'm just going to say, for the readers: I'm going to call Mr. Costa "Robert," and Mr. Woodward, "Bob," just so that we don't get a Bob and Bob problem. Let's start with Robert, where were you born and grew up and how did you gravitate towards political journalism?