Under Barack Obama, the US thinks defence just costs too much - unless it's defending the president from his critics: Bob Woodward said this evening on CNN that a "very senior person" at the White House warned him in an email that he would "regret doing this," the same day he has continued to slam President Barack Obama over the looming forced cuts known as the sequester... The White House aide who Woodward said threatened him was Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, BuzzFeed's Ben Smith reported. Earlier ... Woodward ripped into Obama in what has become an ongoing feud between the veteran Washington Post journalist and the White House. Woodward said Obama was showing a "kind of madness I haven't seen in a long time" for a decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget concerns. The Defense Department said in early February that it would not deploy the U.S.S. Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf, citing budget concerns relating to the looming cuts known as the 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 MSNBC. "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?"