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We also hear an unrepentant Trump bragging about how he kept Congress from sanctioning the Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman over the murder of Saudi Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post who was sharply critical of the prince. "I saved his ass," Trump says, "and it wasn't easy."

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Trump spends considerable time seeking Woodward's acknowledgement of the "breakthrough" with Kim Jong Un, the youthful and curious dictator of North Korea. Trump can scarcely contain his fascination with the way Kim eliminated his rivals for the dictatorship, including the beheading of an uncle. Trump offers to share Kim's letters (which are classified information) with Woodward but asks him not to say how he got them.

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In a Morning Edition interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep airing on Oct. 24, Woodward speaks of how "the power of the audio" brings home something disturbing about Trump. "His voice is so consumed with himself and how he feels and his conclusions."

Woodward says Trump "is not comfortable with democracy," adding later that Trump "does not understand democracy." He returns to Trump's assertion that "Everything is mine," an echo of his 2016 convention claim that "Only I can fix it."

"It's so off the tracks, you don't know what to do with it," Woodward says to Inskeep. "It's almost unexplainable. So what do you as a reporter? You just put it all out there and let the people decide."