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www.washingtonpost.com
A rather chilling excerpt:
Woodward visited Trump on Dec. 30, 2019, at Mar-a-Lago to interview the president. The Democratic-controlled House had voted to impeach him for withholding military aid to Ukraine at the same time he was asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens.
After an hour of Trump defending his request to Zelensky, Trump’s media director, Dan Scavino, joined the interview. Trump asked that Scavino open his laptop and show a clip of the president’s 2019 State of the Union speech. Instead of Trump’s words, hyped-up elevator music played as the camera panned for extended shots of members of Congress watching and listening to the president.
The first shot was of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who looked bored.
Trump was watching over Woodward’s shoulder and was agitated.
“They hate me,” the president said. “You’re seeing hate!”
The camera stopped on Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts liberal. She was listening and had a bland, unemotional look on her face.
“Hate!” Trump said.
A shot of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was next. She had no expression on her face.
“Hate! See the hate!” Trump said.
The camera lingered a long time on Sen. Kamala Harris. She would be chosen as Biden’s running mate the next year. She had a bland, polite look on her face.
“Hate!” Trump said loudly within inches of Woodward’s neck. “See the hate! See the hate!”
It was a remarkable moment. A psychiatrist might say it was a projection of his own hatred of Democrats. But it was so intense that it did not resemble the subdued reaction of the Democrats. His insistence that it was “Hate!” was unsupported by the images on Scavino’s computer. Many Democrats, of course, did hate him. They were vocal and angry opponents of his presidency. But this Trump spectacle was unforgettable and bizarre.
