Excerpts released by The Washington Post revealed that US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reportedly referred to US President Donald Trump as a "fifth or sixth-grader" when POTUS questioned the US' military presence on the Korean Peninsula. Mattis later disowned the statements attributed to him as the "product of a rich imagination." Other leaked portions of the book detail a moment when White House Chief of Staff John Kelly allegedly called Trump an "idiot" who has "gone off the rails."
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Tuesday that the book's contents were "nothing more than fabricated stories." For added measure, Trump took to Twitter this week to tell his followers that Woodward's book was filled with "so many lies and phony sources."
In the hours since the op-ed was published, Trump has questioned the authenticity of the work, going as far as calling on the Times to turn over their contributor to the authorities for "national security purposes." He also asked bluntly: "TREASON?"