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The 13th Annual Books By The Banks Cincinnati USA Book Festival will be held Saturday, October 26 the Duke Energy Convention Center in downtown Cincinnati. Along with more than 100 authors who will talk with patrons and sign copies of their books, there will be author panels and discussions; a kids zone and teen scene with a variety of activities and entertainment; sponsor tables; and an onsite bookstore from Joseph Beth Booksellers.Cincinnati Public Radio will have a table - stop by and say hi to the hosts and staff, sign-up to win a CD or other prize, and let us know what you think about our stations! This event is free to attend, and runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.More information can be found at booksbythebanks.org.91.7 WVXU is a proud media partner.We've had the opportunity to interview, or review, many of the authors you'll meet at this year's Books by the Banks . Here's a list if you'd like to hear from one of your favorites! BBTB 2019 AUTHORS WHO HAVE BEEN ON WVXU THIS YEARConnie Dow: From A to Z with Energy! 26 Ways to Move and PlayTerry Gamble: The EulogistJessica Strawser: Forget You Know MeAlexander Watson: Saucy Boat, Stout Mates, Spotted Dog, AmericaMargaret McMullan: Where The Angels LivedCandace Ganger: Six Goodbyes We Never SaidBook Review: Dan and Judy Dourson: Wildflowers and Ferns of Red River Gorge and the Greater Red River BasinJohn Kachuba: Shapeshifters: A HistoryDan Woellert: Cincinnati Goetta: A Delectable HistoryKaren Abbott: The Ghosts Of Eden ParkBook Review: Constance J. Moore and Nancy M. Broermann: Maria Longworth Storer: From Music and Art to Popes and PresidentsPauletta Hansel:When She Was Done (a Mother's Day poem)Coal Town Photograph (Father's Day poems)Sherry Stanforth and Richard Hague: Riparian: Poetry, Short Prose, and Photographs Inspired by the Ohio River (airing on November 24)Rick Kennedy: 100 Years of Reimagining Flight (Cincinnati Edition)Jack Heffron: Classic Reds: The 50 Greatest Games in Cincinnati Reds History (Cincinnati Edition)Michael Morgan: Cincinnati Beer (Cincinnati Edition)Greg Rhodes and John Erardi: Baseball Revolutionaries: How the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Rocked the Country and Made Baseball Famous (Cincinnati Edition)David Bell: LayoverWilliam Plunkett: The G-Men and the Nurse: A 1929 Washington Cold CaseJillian Scudder: Astroquizzical: A Curious Journey Through Our Cosmic Family Tree (Looking Up podcast)

Woodward Addresses Criticism That He Should've Detailed Trump Interviews Earlier

Journalist Bob Woodward, seen here in 2017 arriving for meetings with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York, is the author of the newly released book <em>Rage</em>.
Kena Betancur
/
AFP via Getty Images
Journalist Bob Woodward, seen here in 2017 arriving for meetings with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York, is the author of the newly released book Rage.

Famed journalist Bob Woodward is addressing criticism he has received for not promptly sharing with the public what the president told him about the coronavirus and the government's response in a series of interviews earlier this year.

Woodward's new book, Rage, which details the interviews, is set for release Tuesday.

During one phone interview on Feb. 7, President Trump shared with Woodward that the virus is airborne and is "more deadly than even your strenuous flus."

And yet the next month, Trump publicly compared COVID-19 to the seasonal flu.

But Woodward told NPR's All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly in an interview that in February, he thought Trump was referring to the virus in China.

"I ... believed he was talking about the virus in China, because he had talked to Chinese President Xi [Jinping] the night before," he said.

Woodward said he unsuccessfully tried to gain access to the transcript of the call between the two world leaders to confirm that it was Xi who gave that information about the virus to Trump.

By March, Woodward told NPR, the virus was clearly an "American problem" too.

"And so I'm asking the question, what did the president know, when did he know it, and how did he know it? And I worked for 2 1/2 months to find out and it was finally in May when I discovered that there was this meeting, Jan. 28, in the Oval Office."

That January meeting is the opening scene of Rage, in which Woodward says national security adviser Robert O'Brien tells Trump that the coronavirus would be the "biggest national security threat you face in your presidency."

"I wish I knew what I learned in May earlier. Unfortunately, I did not," Woodward said.

He added: "I've done this almost for 50 years, and I think I have a public health responsibility, like any citizen does — or maybe a journalist has more of a responsibility. If at any point I had thought there's something to tell the American people that they don't know, I would do it."

In a March interview, Trump admitted to Woodward that he had been playing down the virus's severity.

"I wanted to always play it down," Trump told Woodward on March 19. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."

Trump has since defended his decision to mislead the public about the severity of the coronavirus, saying he wanted to project "strength."

"What I went out and said is very simple: I want to show a level of confidence, and I want to show strength as a leader, and I want to show our country is going to be fine one way or another," Trump said at a news conference on Thursday.

More than 190,000 Americans have now died from the coronavirus.

Woodward told Kelly: "If there's a tragedy in all of this, and I think there is, it's that Trump, who said, 'I wanted to play it down, because I didn't want to create a panic.' And my study of nine presidents — 20% of the presidents we've had, and the history before that — is when the country is told the truth, they don't panic."

Woodward reflected on another call from Trump, in early April, in which he hung up "feeling worried for the country."

"I said [to Trump] ... 'This is a moment of crisis and necessity, you have a leadership responsibility ... you're gonna be judged by the virus,' " Woodward remembered.

"I was pushing him to deal with it, quite frankly ... and at the end of the book, I say in totality: Trump is the wrong man for the job."

Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, called the president's actions a "betrayal of the American people."

"He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was. And while the deadly disease ripped through our nation, he failed to do his job on purpose," he said during a campaign stop in Michigan on Thursday.

For the book, Woodward conducted 17 on-the-record interviews with Trump. They span from December to late July on the economy, race relations and foreign policy.

Woodward told NPR's Kelly that war between the United States and North Korea got far closer than many realized in 2017.

"It reached the point ... that then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis would go to the National Cathedral to pray and reflect on what his responsibility would be if there was some sort of nuclear exchange with North Korea. It got very dicey," he said.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Barbara Sprunt is a producer on NPR's Washington desk, where she reports and produces breaking news and feature political content. She formerly produced the NPR Politics Podcast and got her start in radio at as an intern on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered and Tell Me More with Michel Martin. She is an alumnus of the Paul Miller Reporting Fellowship at the National Press Foundation. She is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania native.