Former President Donald Trump gave multiple interviews to journalist Bob Woodward during the period of 2019 to 2020 during the 2020 presidential election campaign. Woodward was in the process of writing the book entitled, “Rage” about the Trump presidency, and the interviews were conducted to gather information for the books. The interviews were recorded, and came to be known as the “Trump Tapes,” because Woodward published them.
An audiobook containing the interviews was released last October and was entitled “The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump. The audiobook sold very well – better than Woodward’s several other books about the former president.
Former President Donald Trump said he never gave permission for the audio from his interviews to be published, and filed a lawsuit against Woodward and his publishers, Simon & Schuster, and Paramount Global, for almost $50 million.
Trump’s lawyers filed the suit on Monday, January 30 in the northern district of Florida. They said the suit was based on Woodward’s manipulation, usurpation, and exploitation of former president Trump’s interviews. They say the recordings were supposed to be used exclusively for the book Woodward was writing.
The lawsuit says that Trump told Woodward on several occasions that the recordings had a limited license and that Trump retained all rights to himself to use the audio for commercial purposes.
On Monday night, Trump said that Woodward and his team were illegally profiting off his voice and attempting to make him look bad.
The audiobook has been made into CDs, e-books, and paperbacks.
Publisher Simon & Schuster and Bob Woodward released a joint statement saying Trump’s lawsuit is without merit, and that they will defend themselves against it in court.
“All these interviews were on the record and recorded with President Trump’s knowledge and agreement,” the statement said. “Moreover, it is in the public interest to have this historical record in Trump’s own words. We are confident that the facts and the law are in our favor.”