FILE - In this April 29, 2017, file photo journalist Bob Woodward sits at the head table during the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)NEW YORK – Bob Woodward's “Rage” sold more than 600,000 copies in its first week of publication, continuing a yearlong wave of blockbuster books about President Donald Trump. Simon & Schuster announced Wednesday that Woodward's book will be going into its fourth printing, with total books in print to be 1.3 million copies. Featuring 18 interviews with President Trump, including one in which he acknowledges in February the potential severity of the coronavirus, “Rage” has topped Amazon.com and other bestseller lists since coming out Sept. 15. “Rage” also hasn't matched the pace of Woodward's previous Trump book, “Fear,” which sold more than 1 million copies its first week and has sold 2 million since its 2018 release.

NEW YORK – Bob Woodward says he hadn't planned on releasing audio tapes of his interviews with President Donald Trump for his book “Rage” until CNN reporter Jamie Gangel and the author's wife convinced him. “The microphone really is a microscope.”Gangel worked in tandem with Elsa Walsh, herself an accomplished reporter who helps edit her husband's books, to encourage release of the tapes. For a CNN reporter to help push a news source toward a decision that amplifies the impact of a book that is highly critical of Trump may open Gangel to some criticism. But it's an important role for journalists to advocate for public release of as much information as possible, said Kathleen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin. CNN chief Jeff Zucker, who was interviewing Woodward at the conference, also said that “we're all better” for Gangel pressing the point.

As he engaged in nuclear arms talks with Kim, Trump dismissed intelligence officials' assessments that North Korea would never give up its nuclear weapons. Trump told Woodward that the CIA has no idea how to handle Pyongyang. Critics said that by meeting Kim, Trump provided the North Korean leader with legitimacy on the world stage. Kim wrote to Trump that he believed the deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force." But the sources did not provide details and told Woodward, according to the book, that they were surprised Trump had disclosed it.

WASHINGTON Veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's new book about President Donald Trump is titled Rage and will be released Sept. 15, less than two months before Election Day, according to a listing on Amazon.com. Publisher Simon & Schuster says the forthcoming book follows Trumps moves as he faces a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest. It says Woodward conducted a series of exclusive interviews with the president. The Amazon listing also notes that Woodward obtained 25 personal letters between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, including one in which Kim describes their bond as something out of a fantasy film.Woodward's first book about the Trump presidency, Fear, was published in 2018 and went to No. 1 on The New York Times' nonfiction bestseller list. Simon & Schuster was the publisher of two books this year that were harshly critical of Trump: The Room Where It Happened, by former national security adviser John Bolton, and Too Much and Never Enough, by Trump's niece Mary Trump.