Top 200 Bob Woodward Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I think there are people out there who just kind of say, let’s repot the plant. Let’s give somebody else a chance. And it’s not just anger or disappointment in their lives, it’s the sense of, let’s shake this up. And no one is shaking it up as much as Trump.”

— Bob Woodward

102. “I would recommend you run as if you are running for governor in three states – Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. There were the first three caucus or primary states. “Run and sound local, like you want to be their governor.” A lot of candidates make the huge mistake of trying to run in 27 states. “Run three governor’s races, and you’ll have a really good shot. Focus on three. Do well in three. And the others will come.”

— Bob Woodward

103. “Trump had gone bankrupt six times and seemed not to mind. Bankruptcy was just another business strategy. Walk away, threaten to blow up the deal. Real.”

— Bob Woodward

104. “Dowd was aware that he had illustrated the president was “clearly disabled.”

— Bob Woodward

105. “Let that analysis sink in: Twenty percent of the president’s staff think they are “saving the world” from the president.”

— Bob Woodward

106. “After Nixon resigned in 1974, he engaged in a very aggressive war with history, attempting to wipe out the Watergate stain and memory. Happily, history won, largely because of Nixon’s tapes.”

— Bob Woodward

107. “Caught by surprise, Kelly had gone dark for several hours. He’d had to call his wife and explain that he had no choice but to accept after being offered one of the most important jobs in the world via tweet.”

— Bob Woodward

108. “He’s a professional liar.”

— Bob Woodward

109. “You need to remember we’re a nuclear power. As powerful as you. You Americans think you won the Cold War. You did not win the Cold War. We never fought that war. We could have, but we didn’t.’ And that put chills up my spine.”

— Bob Woodward

110. “Having failed in efforts to control or curtail the president’s tweeting, Priebus searched for a way to have practical impact. Since the tweets were often triggered by the president’s obsessive TV watching, he looked for ways to shut off the television. But television was Trump’s default activity. Sunday nights were often the worst. Trump would come back to the White House from the weekend at one of his golf resorts just in time to catch political talk on his enemy networks, MSNBC and CNN.”

— Bob Woodward

111. “I don’t think voters give a hoot about the character of their political advisors, except to the extent that character reflects on the candidates.”

— Bob Woodward

112. “Everybody’s trying to get me,” the president said.”

— Bob Woodward

113. “This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner.”

— Bob Woodward

114. “Recusing himself made the attorney general a “traitor,” Trump said to Porter. The president made fun of his Southern accent. “This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner.”

— Bob Woodward

115. “Trump rejected the better judgment of almost all of his staff. He had done that before. His perverse independence and irrationality ebbed and flowed.”

— Bob Woodward

116. “All presidencies are audience driven, but Trump’s central audience was often himself.”

— Bob Woodward

117. “If you interviewed 1,000 politicians and asked about whether the media’s too soft or too hard, about 999 would say too hard.”

— Bob Woodward

118. “Do you want this job?” the president asked McMaster. “Yes, sir.” “You got it,” Trump said and shook McMaster’s hand. “Get the media. Get the cameras in here.” He wanted a picture with his latest general who looked out of Central Casting.”

— Bob Woodward

119. “Finally, the president added, ‘The American people are idealists, but they also want their leaders to be realistic...”

— Bob Woodward

120. “Nobody believes – even the people who believe in him somehow believe in him without believing what he says.”

— Bob Woodward

121. “As an extreme measure, Hicks, Porter, Gary Cohn and White House social media director Dan Scavino proposed they set up a committee. They would draft some tweets that they believed Trump would like. If the president had an idea for a tweet, he could write it down or get one of them in and they would vet it. Was it factually accurate? Was it spelled correctly? Did it make sense?”

— Bob Woodward

122. “Cohn had witnessed this for over a year – denial when needed or useful or more convenient. “He’s a professional liar,” Cohn told an associate.”

— Bob Woodward

123. “Watergate is an immensely complicated scandal with a cast of characters as varied as a Tolstoy novel.”

— Bob Woodward

124. “When you practice reporting for as long as I have, you keep yourself at a distance from True Believers. Either conservatives or liberals or Democrats or Republicans.”

— Bob Woodward

125. “Nixon’s grand mistake was his failure to understand that Americans are forgiving, and if he had admitted error early and apologized to the country, he would have escaped.”

— Bob Woodward

126. “Tillerson said, and the floodgates gushed open. “The president can’t make a decision. He doesn’t know how to make a decision.”

— Bob Woodward

127. “He’s 71. He’s not going to admit he’s wrong, ever.”

— Bob Woodward

128. “The Justice Department Inspector General was investigating Comey’s actions in the Clinton email case.”

— Bob Woodward

129. “Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like – and had the understanding of – “a fifth or sixth grader.”

— Bob Woodward

130. “You show by where you go and by the use of your time what’s most important.”

— Bob Woodward

131. “Cohn concluded that Trump was, in fact, going backwards. He had been more manageable the first months when he was a novice.”

— Bob Woodward

132. “Priebus called the presidential bedroom “the devil’s workshop” and the early mornings and dangerous Sunday nights “the witching hour.”

— Bob Woodward

133. “Members of his staff had joined to purposefully block some of what they believed were the president’s most dangerous impulses. It was a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.”

— Bob Woodward

134. “The Fox News network, especially opinion broadcaster Sean Hannity, had a Svengali-like influence on Trump that Rosenstein privately labeled “malicious.” Too many right-wing nuts had influence. He also found no comfort or credibility with mainstream media reporters, who he believed were prisoners of their partisan sources.”

— Bob Woodward

135. “Clinton feels a profound alienation from the Washington culture here, and I happen to agree with him.”

— Bob Woodward

136. “Ailes said they were there for their weekly debate prep. The first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton was a month and a half away, on September 26. “Debate prep?” Bannon said. “You, Christie and Rudy?” “This is the second one.” “He’s actually prepping for the debates?” Bannon said, suddenly impressed. “No, he comes and plays golf and we just talk about the campaign and stuff like that. But we’re trying to get him in the habit.”

— Bob Woodward

137. “Haitians,” Trump said. “We don’t need more Haitians.”

— Bob Woodward

138. “One day in the Oval Office, Cohn brought in the latest job numbers to Trump and Pence. “I have the most perfect job numbers you’re ever going to see,” Cohn said. “It’s all because of my tariffs,” Trump said. “They’re working.” Trump had yet to impose any tariffs, but he believed they were a good idea and knew Cohn disagreed with him.”

— Bob Woodward

139. “Later, when Trump brought up the second speech to him, the staff secretary said, “I thought the second speech was the only good one of the three.” “I don’t want to talk to you,” Trump responded. “Get away from me.”

— Bob Woodward

140. “It would seem that the Watergate story from beginning to end could be used as a primer on the American political system.”

— Bob Woodward

141. “The individual income tax rates were pegged at 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and the top rate, 37 percent. The drop from 39.6 percent was standard Republican tax cutting. In the end, the law would add an estimated $1.5 trillion to the annual deficit over 10 years.”

— Bob Woodward

142. “Mattis had a general operating philosophy which he articulated many times over the years: “You don’t always control your circumstances, but you can control your response.”

— Bob Woodward

143. “Former General John Kelly had stood in the Trump Tower lobby as Trump took questions with a grim look on his face. Colbert said, “This guy is a four-star general. Iraq, no problem. Afghanistan, we can do it. Twenty-minute Trump press conference? A quagmire.”

— Bob Woodward

144. “I have written things that Republicans and Democrats and all kinds of figures have either hated or felt very uncomfortable about. Because in doing these long projects and books, you get close to the bone. And they’re not calling me up and asking me for dinner.”

— Bob Woodward

145. “When you hear in the tape recordings Nixon’s own voice saying, We have to stonewall, We have to lie to the Grand Jury, We have to pay burglars a million dollars, it’s all too clear the horror of what went on.”

— Bob Woodward

146. “Priebus realized that the president didn’t care that it was a goal, not an obligation. Trump cared that he could sell it and try to win over public opinion.”

— Bob Woodward

147. “Over the decades Goldman Sachs had not done business with the Trump Organization or Trump himself, knowing that he might stiff anyone and everyone. He would just not pay, or sue. Early in Cohn’s time at Goldman there had been a junior salesperson who did a bond trade for a casino with Trump.”

— Bob Woodward

148. “It’s not what we did for the country,” Cohn said. “It’s what we saved him from doing.”

— Bob Woodward

149. “On July 25, the president again berated McMaster. He had no interest in allies, Trump said. He didn’t want any troops in South Korea even when reminded about the differential between the seven seconds to detect an ICBM launch from there as opposed to 15-minute detection from Alaska.”

— Bob Woodward

150. “For Mr. Trump, though, bringing in Mr. Bannon was the political equivalent of ordering comfort food.” Bannon tried to sit down with Trump and walk him through refinements of the strategy and how to focus on particular states. The candidate had no interest in talking about it.”

— Bob Woodward