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Bob Woodward On Donald Trump: 'People Better Wake Up To What's Going On'

“Let’s hope we don’t have a crisis,” the famed reporter said in assessing how the Trump White House operates.

President Donald Trump’s aides worry he poses a potential threat to national security, veteran journalist Bob Woodward said in his first TV interview to promote his forthcoming tell-all book on the Trump presidency.

“You look at the operation of this White House and you have to say, ’Let’s hope to God we don’t have a crisis,’” Woodward said in an interview that aired Sunday on “CBS Sunday Morning.”

“People better wake up to what’s going on,” he added.

Woodward, famously part of the duo of reporters who unearthed the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post during the Nixon administration, said he interviewed nearly 100 people for Fear: Trump in the White House, slated for release on Sept. 11.

“People who work for him are worried... that he will sign things or give orders that threaten the national security or the financial security of the country, or of the world,” he told CBS.

Trump has lashed out at Woodward, claiming the renowned journalist fabricated many of the explosive quotes in the book attributed to top Trump administration officials, including White House chief of staff John Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

“The Woodward book is a scam,” Trump tweeted Friday. “I don’t talk the way I am quoted. If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up.”

Woodward on Sunday brushed off Trump’s attacks.

“He’s wrong, and my reporting is meticulous and careful,” Woodward said, affirming even the most eyebrow-raising passages in his book. For instance, he wrote that Chief Economic Adviser Gary Cohn and White House staff secretary Rob Porter, before their ousters from the administration, stole documents off Trump’s desk in the Oval Office so he couldn’t sign them.

“They realized that [these documents] would endanger the country,” Woodward said. Cohn and Porter got away with it because Trump “doesn’t remember. If it’s not on his desk, if it’s not immediately available for action, it goes away.”

Watch Woodward’s full interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” below:

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