Bob Woodward responds to Trump calling him a liar: ‘The truth will emerge’

On The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward got the chance to responda> to Donald Trump calling him a liar earlier in the day. Following his appearance on Todayin which Woodward spoke about his new book Fear: Trump in the White House, Trump sent out a tweet in which he not only misquoted anchor Savannah Guthrie, making one of her questions seem to condemn Woodward, but he also called Woodward a liar. When Colbert asked Woodward how it feels when the president says he’s lying, Woodward simply answered, “I’m not.”Trump has also referred to the book as a scam and a joke, a much different tone than he struck in mid-August when he spoke to Woodward on the phone and expressed regret for not getting to be part of the book. Woodward told Trump he tried to get an interview with him but it just never happened. Trump responded, “It’s really too bad, because nobody told me about it, and I would’ve loved to have spoken to you. You know I’m very open to you. I think you’ve always been fair.”

Trump points to the fact that many in his administration who were quoted in the book saying negative things about him now deny ever saying those things. Woodward shrugs this off as people just trying to save their jobs. Trump also points to the fact that some of Woodward’s sources have remained anonymous, something the president truly despises since a scathing op-ed was printed in the New York Times, supposedly written by an anonymous senior administration official. But despite what Trump says about it, Woodward stands by his work.“I’m willing to put myself out here,” Woodward said. “I”ve done the work. This is the best reporting you can do, or that I can do.”Woodward respects Trump’s right to say what he wants about the book, but remembered what his editor from the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, used to say about truth during the Watergate scandal.“He said, ‘The truth emerges.’ And the truth will emerge on this too,” Woodward said.