p. 225
“

Cohn concluded that Trump was, in fact, going backwards. He had been more manageable the first months when he was a novice. For Priebus, it was the worst meeting among many terrible ones. Six months into the administration, he could see vividly that they had a fundamental problem of goal setting. Where were they going? The distrust in the room had been thick and corrosive. The atmosphere was primitive; everyone was ostensibly on the same side, but they had seemed suited up in battle armor, particularly the president. This was what craziness was like, Priebus concluded.

— Bob Woodward

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Cohn concluded that Trump was, in fact, going backwards. He had been more manageable the first months when he was a novice. For Priebus, it was the worst meeting among many terrible ones. Six months into the administration, he could see vividly that they had a fundamental problem of goal setting. Where were they going? The distrust in the room had been thick and corrosive. The atmosphere was primitive; everyone was ostensibly on the same side, but they had seemed suited up in battle armor, particularly the president. This was what craziness was like, Priebus concluded." in the context of "p. 225" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Bob Woodward" (Quotes, Fear: Trump in the White House (2018): New York: Simon & Schuster. All quotes are from the 2018 hardcover edition.) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Bob Woodward

About Bob Woodward

Robert Upshur "Bob" Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is a journalist in the United States, known mostly for his work in helping uncover the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation, in a partnership with Carl Bernstein, while working as a reporter for The Washington Post. He has written twelve nonfiction books and has twice contributed reporting to efforts that collectively earned the Post and its National Reporting staff a Pulitzer Prize.