Woodward: White House Said I'd 'Regret' Sequester Stance

Calls Obama's approach 'madness'
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 28, 2013 3:46 AM CST
Updated Feb 28, 2013 5:39 AM CST

Bob Woodward's standoff with the White House is heating up: Now the journalist says a top administration official warned him to stop blaming President Obama for the sequester, Business Insider reports. In an email, "it was said very clearly: You will regret doing this," Woodward told CNN. "It makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters, 'You're going to regret doing something that you believe in.'" Woodward said his take on the run-up to sequestration is "irrefutable," while a White House official says "no threat was intended" and the email "was sent to apologize for voices being raised in their previous conversation."

Earlier, Woodward told MSNBC that the administration's linking of national security to the sequester was "a kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time." The Pentagon recently said it would postpone deploying an aircraft carrier to the Middle East due to funding concerns, and yesterday, Obama was in Virginia to talk about the sequester's dangers to the Navy. "So we now have the president going out (saying) 'Because of this piece of paper and this agreement, I can't do what I need to do to protect the country,'" Woodward said, per Reuters. (More Bob Woodward stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X