Editor’s Note: The story below contains explicit language.
In their new book “Peril,” journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa explore the opening months of Joe Biden’s presidency, including how Biden was hellbent not to let the military stop him from withdrawing from Afghanistan and how Donald Trump’s shadow hangs over the Biden presidency.
The book explores Biden’s determination to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan despite resistance from top advisers. Biden was resolute on getting US troops out, having wrestled with the issue for nearly 20 years – and having watched, as vice president, military and national security leaders box in then-President Barack Obama in his first year when he wanted to end the US war in Afghanistan.
Biden believed the military manipulated Obama.
“The military doesn’t fuck around with me,” Biden told others in 2009, implying they had with Obama, according to the book.
CNN obtained a copy of ‘Peril” ahead of its September 21 release.
Woodward and Costa write that Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Ll