Trump has continues to downplay the seriousness of the Covid pandemic, claiming 'it affects virtually nobody.' Video / C-SPAN
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.
Trump speaks at a campaign rally on Tuesday in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. Photo / AP
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.
"He (Trump) told me at some length, he said, 'I have lots of secret supporters and people who love me. And they won't tell pollsters, they won't tell their wives, they won't tell their spouses, but they secretly support me'," Woodward told Australia's ABC programme 7.30.
"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 said he's "deeply, profoundly worried" about the thought of Trump clinging on to power in the world's biggest economy.
"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.
A boy holds up a Trump 2020 banner during a Make America Great Again Rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month. Photo / Getty Images
The Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward arrives at Trump Tower in New York in 2017. Photo / AP
"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."
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.
