Veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward says a senior official from the White House told him he will "regret" a claim he made in an op-ed piece.
Last week, Woodward wrote that President Obama is “moving the goal posts” by demanding a package of tax revenues and spending cuts to replace the sequester starting Friday. He said it was “wrong” to blame the cuts on Republicans.
In an interview with Politico¸ Woodward revealed an email from an unidentified administration official that read, "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."
Woodward appeared on CNN's "The Situation Room," and the White House declined to send anyone to debate him on the issue. But as The Week reports, a White House official who would not speak if named said late Wednesday, "Of course no threat was intended."
On CNN, Woodword said, “It makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters, you're going to regret doing something that you believe in."
In the op-ed, Woodward criticizes the President for requiring new taxes, saying it wasn't part of the original sequester deal in 2011. The piece has been cited by many Republicans who are against new taxes.
Others, such as Brian Beutler from Talking Points Memo, says Woodward is wrong because President Obama has always called for new revenues along with spending cuts in order to reduce the deficit. He says the sequester was signed to compel Congress to act on a different deficit reduction package.
On Wednesday, Woodward criticized the President who said he’s going to hold back on military deployments because of the budget cuts.
Woodward called it, “madness.”
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