Quotes from Bob Woodward

If a problem can't be solved easily, make it bigger

and everything else. Right? They

He spoke of hope and opportunity, and the difference between them: Opportunity, he said, was an objective reality. Hope was the faith things could be better.

They had devised a simple story, with characters, with an objective, with a beginning, middle, and end.

Karen Pence had been working for days on goodie bags for staffers in her husband's office, packing them with champagne flutes, honey from their beehive at the Naval Observatory, and cutting boards with the vice presidential seal. She also dropped in a print of her painting of the Naval Observatory, a nod toward her work to bring attention to art therapy, a mental health initiative she had promoted for years.

Yeah," Trump told advisers, speaking about Giuliani, "he's crazy. He says crazy shit. I get it. But none of the sane lawyers can represent me because they've been pressured

Should I resign?" he asked Colin Powell, who had been the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush. "Fuck no!" Powell said. "I told you never to take the job. You never should have taken the job. Trump's a fucking maniac.

It seemed to Coats that Trump was alone a lot in an empty house, particularly on weekends. And that, Coats believed, had to have an impact, increasing Trump's sense of isolation. Coats found that Trump was becoming more and more paranoid and lonely.

You've got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women," he said. "If you admit to anything and any culpability, then you're dead. That was a big mistake you made. You didn't come out guns blazing and just challenge them. You showed weakness. You've got to be strong. You've got to be aggressive. You've got to push back hard. You've got to deny anything that's said about you. Never admit.

The system was designed to reduce the randomness of voter contact, to make sure the volunteers and field staff concentrated their efforts on those most likely to vote for Trump.

But including it, even in scaled-down form, in one of the most important briefings the intelligence chiefs might ever present to a president-elect made little sense to me. It would be as if I had reported and written one of the most serious, complex stories for The Washington Post that I had ever done—and then provided an appendix of unverified allegations. Oh, by the way, here is a to-do list for further reporting and we're publishing it.

Hillary Clinton spent her entire adult life getting ready for this moment. Trump hasn't spent a second getting ready for this moment.

Media coverage of Milley's letter was scant, but Vox reported it was a "remarkable statement" and "it looks as though America's top military officials won't tolerate another thing: the attempted overthrow of American democracy by force.

During the transition period, Zients and Quillian knew they couldn't direct FEMA to begin preparations. Instead, they began submitting question after question to FEMA, signaling the plan FEMA would operationalize at noon on January 20.

An executive order signed in 1981 by President Reagan stated, "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the U.S. government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination." But government lawyers had concluded that a military strike on a leader's command-and-control headquarters during hostilities would not violate the assassination ban.

Inside the Republican cloakroom, one joke McConnell enjoyed telling was about Trump's former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, a cabinet member he had liked. In 2017, the State Department had strongly denied Tillerson called Trump a "moron.

The Deep State was not the problem. It was the up-in-your-face state.

Quarles accepted. Dowd thought he and Quarles worked well together. They could meet and talk, whereas Mueller was so rigid, he sometimes seemed like marble.

In Vietnam today there is a My Lai Museum. Hersh visited it in early 2015 for The New Yorker and noted the names and ages of the victims listed on a marble plaque. The count of the dead is no longer in dispute: a total of 504 people from 247 families; 24 families lost everyone—three generations, no survivors. Included in the 504 were 60 elderly men, and 282 women (17 of whom were pregnant). A total of 173 children were killed; 53 were infants.

at 6:03 a.m., Trump had tweeted: "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign—'quietly working to boost Clinton.' So where is the investigation A.G. [attorney general]" It was clearly Russian propaganda, McMaster said.

We should just declare victory, end the wars and bring our troops home.

Sidney Powell promises and never delivers," Herschmann said, looking at Powell, prompting Flynn and others to disagree. "Lawyers," Trump sighed, "I have nothing but lawyers that stop me on everything." "I'm very embarrassed by my lawyers and the Justice Department," he added. Trump looked at Powell. "At least she's giving me a chance." The siren song of declarative presidential action.

Barbara Tuchman's book The Guns of August

was indeed a coup attempt and nothing less than "treason," he said, and Trump might still be looking for what Milley called a "Reichstag moment.