On February 27, veteran journalist Bob Woodward said on CNN that a "very senior person" at the White House warned him in an email that he would "regret doing this." This was on the day that Woodward had slammed President Barack Obama over cuts coming to federal spending known as the sequester.
Wolf Blitzer of CNN said that the network invited a White House official to debate Woodward on-air, but was declined. "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. "I think they're confused," Woodward said of the pushback coming from the Executive Mansion.
Earlier on February 27, Woodward criticized Obama on MSNBC's "Morning Joe", saying that the president has revealed "kind of madness I haven't seen in a long time" for ostensibly not deploying an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget constraints. Earlier this month, DoD revealed that it would not send the USS Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf, citing the coming sequester. "Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, 'Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget document?'" Woodward said on “Morning Joe.” Adding fuel to the fire, Woodward said, "Or George W. Bush saying, 'You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need?'" Or even Bill Clinton saying, 'You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein's intelligence headquarters,' ... because of some budget document?"
"Under the Constitution, the President is commander-in-chief and employs the force. And so we now have the President going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement. 'I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country,'" Woodward said.
Over the February 23-24 weekend, Woodward also critiqued Obama for "moving the goal posts" on the coming sequester by demanding that revenue be part of a deal to avert it.
But according to Ben Smith of BuzzFeed, here is what the so far un-named senior White House official actually wrote to Woodward in an email: "You're focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. … I think you will regret staking out that claim."
