"Grave damage" is being done to the nation's economy and national security through President Donald Trump's actions concerning outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis, the standoff over the border wall, and the Federal Reserve, journalist and author Bob Woodward said Wednesday.
"It's a governing crisis," Woodward told CNN's "New Day."
"You have the exit of Mattis, a tragedy for the country. Mattis was trying to thread the needle and make his points and, quite frankly, educate President Trump, and the departure is something that I think is going down in the history books."
The only way to get out of the "mess" the country is in would be a deal, said Woodward, and to do that, people will have to give up on some of what they hold dear.
"President Trump is obsessed with the wall and wants $5 billion," said Woodward. "The Democrats say they are not going to give it to him. Unfortunately Trump probably is not going to give on that."
Woodward also noted that a deal may be necessary to diminish the tension between Trump and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
"Trump may think he can break the Fed," said Woodward. "I don't think he can."
Meanwhile, if the Trump administration is "sitting round making decisions on the president's whim," that is also a problem, said Woodward.
"Gary Cohn, who was the chief executive counsel to Trump, and Gen. Mattis, they had an alliance, let's keep really bad things from happening," said Woodward. "They are both gone now.
"So we better face the reality, this is a dangerous time. This is not just another government shutdown or another example of this impasse. It is something people better think about."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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