SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Legendary journalist Bob Woodward's new book, "War," like so many of his books about the American presidency over the last half-century, is generating headlines, like the one about the COVID test machine that then President Donald Trump sent Russian President Vladimir Putin in the early days of the pandemic...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: And new revelations from Bob Woodward about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAMIE GANGEL: ...That Trump secretly sent to Putin scarce COVID testing machines for his personal use.
DETROW: ...Or the seven secret phone calls Woodward reports that Trump had with Putin after Trump left office...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: The two have spoken as many as seven times since he left the White House.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: Oh, wow.
DETROW: ...And the detail that Secretary of State Antony Blinken nudged President Joe Biden toward his decision to drop out of the race after that debate in June - a lot of eye-popping details. But these books that Woodward writes are about more than the juicy nuggets that rocket around cable news and social media. They take you into the room where it happened and into the key meetings where major decisions about war and peace are being made. That's especially valuable in an administration like Joe Biden's, which has been so careful and scripted in public appearances. Bob Woodward joins me now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
BOB WOODWARD: Thank you.
DETROW: I wanted to start with the war in Ukraine, actually, because we knew from public statements from President Biden, from National Security Advisor Jacob Sullivan and others that there were deep concerns about the threat of nuclear weapons. But in the book, you describe detailed meetings where the Biden administration is taking this incredibly seriously. They're very concerned. How real was the threat of nuclear weapons in the fall of 2022?
WOODWARD: Well, it becomes very vivid because of the intelligence and because of the assessment. It's 50%, a coin flip, as one of Biden's aides says. And the worry is so deep. Oh, my God, we're going to have nuclear use in the Biden presidency, which is the last thing or one of the last things he wants. And so they're all over it.
DETROW: Can you walk us through some of the reporting that you've gathered of the direct phone calls from the secretary of defense and others to their counterparts in Russia saying, don't do this?
WOODWARD: Yeah. And, I mean, the most vivid one is Secretary of Defense Austin. There is a - I have a literal transcript, and if you'll permit me to read some of it - because It makes the knowledge that they have real. And it makes how they're dealing with this crisis - and so Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin - they agree in the NSC, let's call your counterpart, Sergei Shoigu. And first, Austin says to Shoigu, (reading) we know you are contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. First, any use of nuclear weapons on any scale against anybody would be seen by the United States and the world as a world-changing event. There is no scale of nuclear weapons use that we could overlook or that the world could overlook.
In other words, it's not just, hey. What's going on? It's, we know. And so here it goes on and says, if you did this, all the restraints that we have been operating under in Ukraine would be reconsidered, Austin said. And, quote, "this would isolate Russia on the world stage to a degree you Russians cannot fully appreciate." Shoigu says, quote, "I don't like kindly to being threatened." Austin says, I think in one of the bluntest open interchanges I've ever learned the details of at this high level, Mr. Minister - Austin said - I am the leader of the most powerful military in the history of the world. I don't make threats.
DETROW: You've been covering national security for a while now. You've been covering administrations from the Nixon administration on. Was this the most serious nuclear threat that you've reported on?
WOODWARD: Yes because they're talking about it in dealing with Ukraine, in the way Putin looks at this and the doctrine of, we can't have a catastrophic battlefield loss. In that situation, we are dancing in history in a way, and they know it.
DETROW: What was Vice President Harris' role in all of these big national security conversations, these key moments that we're talking about - the beginning of the Ukraine war, the Russian nuclear threat, the early days of the Israel-Hamas war?
WOODWARD: She's going to presidents school. That's what vice presidents do. And as best I can tell, she's at almost all of the meetings. She gets involved. And at one point, they're trying to actually respond to - within the NSC, they're discussing what to do when Israel has really kind of pushed back Iran - I mean, not kind of but really eliminated massive numbers of ballistic missiles. And they're in the NSC. And Biden - I think she's remote on a screen. And he says, you know, what should we do? And she's the one who says, take the win.
DETROW: Yeah.
WOODWARD: Take the win. And Biden goes through his response and literally says, take the win to Netanyahu. That's his theme. Stop the momentum of this catastrophe.
DETROW: And that did lead to a slight cooling of the ramping up of tension between Israel and Iran, at least in that particular moment after that first wave of airstrikes on Israel.
WOODWARD: Yeah, exactly.
DETROW: I do want to ask - with Ukraine specifically, there are so many moments that you document where it could have gone either way. It could have expanded into a much more serious confrontation that drew in other countries. There could have been a nuclear exchange - any sense from the conversations you were having, from the interviews you were doing, how the Ukraine war would have played out differently had Donald Trump been in the White House?
WOODWARD: I quote Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser for Biden, saying that if Trump had been president, Putin would be in Kyiv now. Why? Because Trump, who loves dictators and the unity of power in one person, would have waved Putin right into Kyiv. There would have been no pushback. Why? And this is what Jake Sullivan says, which has a lot of truth. Trump loves dictators.
DETROW: Journalist and author Bob Woodward speaking about his new book "War."
(SOUNDBITE OF BADBADNOTGOOD AND GHOSTFACE KILLAH SONG, "EXPERIENCE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
