Watergate reporter Bob Woodward says President Trump could win US election due to ‘secret’ supporters

The journalist who broke the Watergate scandal said President Trump could win the election because of a secret weapon he bragged about.

The reporter responsible for exposing some of the biggest political scandals in US history says “secret supporters” could give Donald Trump four more years in the White House.

The events of 2020 have been politically dire for the president, who has been widely criticised for his handling of the coronavirus and his response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

And as the number of deaths from the pandemic surpasses 200,000, the incumbent remains well behind rival Joe Biden in the polls.

But The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward — whose reporting exposed the Watergate scandal which forced Richard Nixon out of office — said a huge portion of the country, “maybe 40 per cent”, still backed Trump ahead of the November 3 election.

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Secret supporters could give Trump four more years, says Woodward. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

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“He (Trump) told me at some length, he said, ‘I have lots of secret supporters and people who love me,” Woodward told ABC’s 7.30.

“And they won’t tell pollsters, they won’t tell their wives, they won’t tell their spouses, but they secretly support me.’

“People criticise Trump, say he has no sense of decorum. His supporters love he has no sense of decorum, that he raises hell, he does the things he wants.”

Woodward spent nearly 10 hours with the president to write his latest book and his assessments of the man are scathing. Picture: Mandel Ngan and Jim Watson/AFP)

Woodward said he’s “deeply, profoundly worried” about the thought of Trump clinging on to power in the world’s biggest economy.

“He’s the wrong man for the job,” Woodward said.

“He is impulsive, he is not organised — in any organisation you have to build a team, and he will not build a team, he just scorns the people he asks into his administration.

“His job is to take care, and he is not taking care of the people.

“Lots of people just say, ‘Well, you know, the virus came in, it’s no one’s fault.’ That’s medically true but it’s the President’s job to manage it.”

In Woodward’s most recent book, Rage, The Post reporter revealed the president admitted to playing down the seriousness of coronavirus.

“I always wanted to play it down,” Trump told Woodward.

“I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

Journalists Carl Bernstein (L) and Bob Woodward exposed Watergate.

Trump told the author this in March and a month later, on February 7, the president privately explained how deadly and contagious the virus was.

“It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch,” he said.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed.

“This is deadly stuff.”