Donald Trump said he would sue, so he did. The former president has filed a massive multi-million dollar lawsuit against Bob Woodward.
The real estate mogul is asking for $50 million in damages from the reporter over his latest book, Rage, and multiple recordings published under the title The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump.
In late January, Trump’s army of lawyers filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of Florida.
According to the court documents, Trump is attacking the renowned journalist and publisher Simon & Schuster and its parent company, Paramount Global.
Trump is furious about 20 interviews that he did with Woodward while commander-in-chief. According to NPR, the former TV star turned politician sat down with the Washington Post reporter at the White House and Mar-a-Lago between December 2019 and August 2020.
The lengthy and private conversations do not paint Trump in a positive light. The recordings revealed that Trump failed to recognize the seriousness of COVID-19, which killed over one million Americans.
Trump also slammed former President Barack Obama for being overrated and had some thoughts about his middle name Hussein.
Trump said: “I don’t know, and I don’t think Obama’s smart. See? I think he’s highly overrated. And I don’t think he’s a great speaker.”
However, the interviews were conducted with the former president’s consent and cooperation.
In the lawsuit, Trump claimed that because the book Rage failed to have the success that was predicted, the reporter and publishing company “conspired to, and did, collate and cobble together more than eight hours of ‘raw’ interviews and released them in audiobook format without President Trump’s permission.”
The court documents also said: “Paramount, SSI, and Woodward deviated from industry standard practices, did not obtain the requisite releases, misappropriated President Trump’s copyright interests, manipulated the recordings to benefit Woodward’s desired narrative while peddling the story that the recordings are ‘raw,’ and deprived President Trump of the opportunity to publish or not to publish his words, read in his voice.”
Woodward and Simon & Schuster fought back with a statement where they said the lawsuit was “without merit” because the interviews were on the record.
They also stated: “All these interviews were on the record and recorded with President Trump’s knowledge and agreement. Moreover, it is in the public interest to have this historical record in Trump’s own words. We are confident that the facts and the law are in our favor.”
Trump bashed the reporter and the publishing company via a series of fiery posts on Truth Social, explaining that the recordings were manipulated to make him look bad.
He shared: “Woodward and his corporate bosses not only tried to profiteer from doctoring tapes, which were only to be used for the “written word,” namely to help in accuracy for his book. This was an open and blatant attempt to make me look as bad as possible. They have instead been exposed.”
The Republican politician is ready to settle some scores.
