‘You buried the lede’ says Colbert.
With the release of Bob Woodward’s latest book, Fear, on Tuesday, the author hit the promotion trail, appearing on The Late Show hosted by Stephen Colbert on Monday night, where the host had some criticism on the book for Woodward according to the Washington Post.
Colbert’s critique concerned the very last line of the book, which contains a swear word that finishes a dramatic scene, leading Colbert to conclude that Woodward buried the lede.
At the end of the book, Woodward describes a scene where President Donald Trump is undergoing a practice testimony at the White House. The questioning in the mock trial was done by Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, who acted as special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump reportedly responded by screaming and “making things up.”
After seeing Trump’s reaction to the questioning, Dowd immediately tells the president that he can’t testify to Mueller because he is “disabled.”
“Imagine your lawyer telling you you’re disabled and you can’t testify because you can’t tell the truth you just make things up,” said Woodward to Colbert.
With that in mind, the book explains that Dowd tells Trump that he shouldn’t testify or else he’ll end up in prison, and that is what sets up the final line of the book, which Colbert read to the audience
“Dowd knew he could not bring himself to say to the president, ‘you’re a [expletive] liar.’”
Woodward conceded that Colbert had a fair point when he mentioned that Woodward buried the lede, but it’s certainly a dramatic way to end a book.
Among other things Colbert and Woodward discussed was if the author ever thinks about the motives of his sources. While Woodward said he didn’t do that, he explained how he works with the sources who tell him things, checking the information he has been told and verifying it with other sources to confirm the information.
While Fear has not yet been released, publisher Simon and Schuster is already planning on a 1-million-copy run of the book. The book has already hit six reprints to meet the demand, proving that it’s one of the best-selling books about the Trump administration.
The book is already No. 1 on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble best-selling release with a big surge in the past weeks following a preview of excerpts from the book. The only book that directly deals with Trump that outranks Fear is Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, something that Woodward’s book would struggle to overcome, but the book is sure to keep selling and see even more printings.
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