books about donald trump

22 new books that reveal the inner workings of the Trump administration

• President Donald Trump's three years in office have inspired, among other things, several bombshell books from figures inside and close to the White House. 
• More than a dozen bestsellers detail the challenges in covering Trump's time in office, the inner workings of his White House, and a new age for American democracy.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .

The New York Times published a bombshell report on an unpublished manuscript from former national security adviser John Bolton that appeared to shatter President Donald Trump's defense against charges in impeachment proceedings against him. 

Bolton's upcoming book made waves in the context of the impeachment trial, but it's just the latest in a string of books and memoirs to come out about Trump and life inside the White House as journalists, pundits, and political operatives remain focused on the effects his presidency is having on American life.

Here are all of the books that have been written about the Trump White House so far.

"Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising" by Joshua Green

Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Joshua Green published this close look at Trump's relationship with Steve Bannon, former chief strategist and head of right-wing site Breitbart, who contributed to his 2016 election victory and bolstered the alt-right movement. 

Published just months into Trump's presidency in July 2017, "Devil's Bargain" compiled six years of research and interviews to trace the alt-right's roots in Trump's candidacy and its ties to some original members of his administration. 

Source: Amazon

"Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff

Published in January 2018, Wolff's "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" reached the top spot on the New York Times Bestseller list. Wolff's book is described as a behind-the-scenes look at the first year of the Trump administration.

One of the more explosive anecdotes in Wolff's book was former adviser Steve Bannon saying the 2016 meeting at Trump Tower involving Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and the Russians was "treasonous" and "unpatriotic."

But many of the claims in Wolff's book were widely discredited. Wolff himself has even wavered on if everything in the book is true, at one point saying he wasn't sure if it was entirely factual.

Source: Business Insider

"Media Madness: Donald Trump, the Press, and the War over the Truth" by Howard Kurtz

Also released in January, Kurtz's book focuses on the relationship between Trump and the media that covers the president. Kurtz hosts "Media Buzz" on Fox News.

Some of the stories included in Kurtz's book include Bannon telling Trump that he could be impeached, the deterioration of Trump's relationship with the "Morning Joe" television show hosts, and how counselor Kellyanne Conway felt betrayed by her friends in the press.

"Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic" by David Frum

Frum contends that Trump has damaged the American democracy and hurt America's future in "Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic," which was published in January 2018.

A former White House speechwriter for President George W. Bush and currently a columnist for The Atlantic, Frum argues that Trump and his administration are permanently hurting the American democracy.

"It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America" by David Cay Johnston

Published in January 2018, Johnston's "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America" was a New York Times Bestseller.

Johnston writes that Trump is undermining various aspects of the federal government and that it is having a compromising impact on the American people.

The book specifically focuses on Trump's desire to build a wall along the US-Mexican border, the implementation of tariffs, and Trump's efforts to drain the swamp.

"The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography" by David Brody and Scott Lamb

Published in February 2018, Brody's book "The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography" focuses on the president's religious beliefs.

Brody, who serves as the Christian Broadcasting Network's chief political correspondent, writes about Trump being raised as a Presbyterian, his connection to Evangelicals, and his advisers' similar views on Christianity.

"Killing the Deep State: The Fight to Save President Trump" by Jerome Corsi

"Killing the Deep State: The Fight to Save President Trump" was published in March 2018 by Corsi, who is a far-right political commentator and conspiracy theorist well-known for promoting the falsehood that President Barack Obama wasn't born in the US.

After defeating 16 Republican candidates in the primary and Hillary Clinton in the general election, Corsi writes that the so-called deep state is now the biggest obstacle to Trump's presidency.

He claims the mainstream media, bureaucratic holdovers from the Obama administration, and Democratic candidates are conspiring to destroy Trump's presidency and prevent him from serving his full term in office.

Corsi's re-emerged as an unpredictable figure on the political stage after he was subpoenaed in September 2018 by special counsel Robert Mueller to testify in the Russia probe in relation to Trump's longtime ally Roger Stone , who was recently indicted by Mueller. 

Sources: Amazon ,  Business Insider

"The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game" by Ronald Kessler

Published in April 2018, New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler provides readers with an "unbiased" and "unvarnished" view on Trump and the White House.

Kessler's book, which includes interviews with Trump and White House staff, claims that Kushner and Ivanka Trump have been responsible for the president's worst decisions, that first lady Melania Trump has a significant impact on policy decisions, and that Conway is the biggest leaker in the White House.

"The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left's Plot to Stop It" by Andrew Puzder

Puzder's book "The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left's Plot to Stop It" was also released in April.

He once served as the CEO of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, and had to withdraw as Trump's first secretary of labor nominee. He writes that Trump is embracing capitalism by bringing back pro-business policies and economic growth to the US.

Puzder claims that Trump's business background is saving the American economy in the White House.

Source: Amazon 

"Born Trump: Inside America’s First Family" by Emily Jane Fox

Fox's book, which was released in June 2018, also landed on The New York Times Bestseller list.

In "Born Trump: Inside America’s First Family", the Vanity Fair reporter Fox does a deep dive on Trump's adult children and son-in-law.

Fox writes about the lives of Trump's children, what roles they have played in the campaign and administration, and the relationship dynamics with each other and their father. Fox also talks about what their childhoods were like growing up as Trump's kids.

"The Briefing: Politics, The Press, and The President" by Sean Spicer

Released in July 2018, the former White House press secretary takes readers inside his time working for Trump in "The Briefing: Politics, The Press, and The President."

In the memoir, Spicer describes Trump as a "unicorn riding a unicorn across a rainbow."

He also talks about what life as Trump's press secretary was like at the podium during daily press briefings and behind closed doors, as well as writes about the impact that the job had on his family life and faith.

Source: Business Insider ,  Amazon

"Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy" by Judge Jeanine Pirro

Pirro, who has a large conservative audience earned in her time as an often controversial Fox News host book, saw her book "Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy," reach the top spot on The New York Times Bestseller List.

Also released in July 2018, the Fox News host's book takes aim at "fake news," corruption in the law enforcement community, and national security leaks in addition to alleging the "deep state" is trying to take down Trump, advertising that she reveals what is actually going on in the White House.

Pirro has since landed in hot water after saying a Democratic lawmaker wearing a hijab was " antithetical to the Constitution. "  

"The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump" by Gregg Jarrett

Published in July 2018, Jarrett's book also reached the No. 1 spot on The New York Times Bestseller List.

In "The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump", the Fox News legal analyst claims that the FBI and Justice Department tried to get Clinton elected and defeat Trump in 2016. 

Jarrett, who regularly appears on Fox News and often insults Trump's opponents, writes that the same people are behind the investigation into Trump for alleged collusion with Russia in order to undo the election results and remove him from office.

"Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House" by Omarosa Manigault Newman

Released in August 2018, Manigault Newman's "Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House" gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at what her experience and life was like as a senior adviser to Trump in the White House.

The book reveals that Manigault Newman secretly recorded conversations with Trump and other staffers during her time in the White House, which she presents to support her claim that tapes exist of Trump using the N-word on the set of "The Apprentice."

Manigault Newman released such tape of chief of staff John Kelly firing her in the Situation Room as part of a fiery media tour that went on for weeks after her departure. 

The White House denied that claim and painted the book as fiction.

Source: Business Insider , Unhinged

"Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House" by April Ryan

Released in September 2018, Ryan writes about covering the Trump White House in "Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House."

Ryan, who covers the White House for American Urban Radio Networks and as a CNN analyst, takes readers inside the White House from a reporter's perspective to detail the job of a White House reporter covering the Trump administration on a daily basis.

In multiple televised press briefings, Ryan has emerged as a vocal challenger to claims made by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the president himself, who called her a "loser."

"Fear: Trump in the White House" by Bob Woodward

Released on September 11, 2018, Woodward's "Fear: Trump in the White House" generated buzz for weeks before it was released.

Woodward, who earned his name and journalistic reputation covering the Watergate scandal alongside Carl Bernstein, has written books on every president going back to the Nixon White House.

"Fear" is full of damning allegations about the Trump administration, portraying the Trump White House as chaotic and disloyal to the president.

Trump has called the book a "work of fiction," but it has reportedly sparked a "witch hunt" within his administration for people who may have spoken with Woodward.

Source: Business Insider , Amazon

"Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House" by Cliff Sims

"Team of Vipers" is a candid tell-all by ex-administration aide Cliff Sims that details the cutthroat nature of Trump's White House, from his co-workers trashing national policies to helping the president create his "enemies list" of possibly disloyal aides. 

Staunch conservative Sims includes a look at Trump and the administration from a few different angles, including his resounding respect for the president that conflicted with his distress over the administration's position on issues like refugees. 

The book raised some flags after its publication because. Despite Sims serving 18 months with the administration, he was largely unknown and complicit in moves by the administration that are similar to those he criticizes in the book. 

"I'm trying to help you understand the way that Trump ticks," Sims told Business Insider after his book's January 2019 debut. "How he approaches decision-making. Everything that guy says is newsworthy. You could fill volumes of books with the things that he's said, but every story in my book helps you understand it in a larger context." 

"Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump" by Vicky Ward

"Kushner, Inc." made a splash even before it was published in March 2019 because of its endless details on the extraordinarily privileged lives of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Trump's son-in-law and eldest daughter, who also occupy senior advisor positions in the White House. 

Based on Ward's interviews with more than 200 people, "Kushner, Inc." includes stories such as the advisers' illegitimate access to Air Force One and the president's wish that Tom Brady was in Kushner's spot as son-in-law . 

Unsurprisingly, a lawyer for Kushner brushed off the book as "fiction." 

"Correcting everything wrong would take too long and be pointless," attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement to the New York Times , which published several of the book's key details. 

Read more : Business Insider

"A Warning" by Anonymous

In "A Warning," an anonymous senior White House official made a series of revealing claims detailing a chaotic administration. 

The author had previously penned an explosive op-ed in The New York Times in 2018, but this exposé raised eyebrows for describing facets of White House life like aides reacting to Trump's tweets and the president's mental capabilities.

In an open Reddit forum hosted by the author after the book's release, the official gave their take on the impeachment inquiry House Democrats were pursuing into Trump, touting their whole-hearted belief that Trump sought out Ukraine to affect the 2020 election. 

Predictably, the White House dismissed the claims made by the anonymous author, telling The Hill that "the book is nothing but lies."

"Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House" by Sarah Huckabee Sanders

This upcoming book from Trump's former press secretary apparently describes her time spent on the front lines of the administration's fiery relationship with the media. 

When announcing her book in January 2020, Axios reported that Sanders said it would contain "a candid account of my relationship and interactions with the press. And some reporters come out a lot better than others!"

Sanders left the White House in June 2019 after regular combative and tense confrontations with the press corps while often sparking questions about the claims she made on behalf of the president. Some of her most noticeable moments include defending Trump's retweets of an anti-Muslim extremist, revoking CNN reporter Jim Acosta's press credentials, and taking official press briefings from a daily exercise to a rare occurrence. 

The book is due out on September 8, 2020 . 

"A Very Stable Genius" by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig

With a title borrowing from one of Trump's repeated praises of himself, this book from The Washington Post's national investigative reporter Carol Leonnig and White House bureau chief Philip Rucker examines Trump's behavior and the workings of his inner circle during the first three years of his presidency. 

"The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir" by John Bolton

"The Room Where It Happened" offers a look into Bolton's 519-day stint as Trump's national security adviser. The book made waves before it was published after a bombshell New York Times report on the unpublished manuscript said Bolton claimed in the book that Trump told him about withholding $391 million in security aid to Ukraine until officials there promised to pursue investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump's political rival.

The claim effectively shattered Trump's defense in the impeachment trial against him that ultimately ended in the president's acquittal.

The book is set to be released on March 17, 2020. 

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Our Journey Together Hardcover – December 7, 2021

• Print length 320 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Winning Team Publishing
• Publication date December 7, 2021
• Reading age 18 years and up
• Dimensions 12 x 1.2 x 10.6 inches
• ISBN-10 173550372X
• ISBN-13 978-1735503721
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Winning Team Publishing (December 7, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 173550372X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1735503721
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.18 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12 x 1.2 x 10.6 inches
• #25 in US Presidents

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About the author

Donald j. trump.

Donald J. Trump is the very definition of the American success story, continually setting the standards of excellence while expanding his interests in real estate, sports, and entertainment. He is a graduate of the Wharton School of Finance. An accomplished author, Mr. Trump has authored over fifteen bestsellers and his first book, The Art of the Deal, is considered a business classic and one of the most successful business books of all time. Mr. Trump has over eight million followers on social media and is a frequent guest across a variety of media platforms. Photo by by Michael Vadon [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Customers say the book has beautiful pictures and is very well done. They find the historical setting interesting and bring back great memories. Readers also describe it as a great book about a good president and a perfect gift.

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Customers find the book design beautiful and historic. They also mention that the picture of Trump smiling is great.

"This book has beautiful pictures of a beautiful administration ...." Read more

"...Excellent quality paper was used so the pictures are really remarkable in color and content . An interesting trip into the Trump Era." Read more

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Customers find the book very well done and a beautiful legacy of President Donald's hard work and dedication.

"... Excellent quality paper was used so the pictures are really remarkable in color and content. An interesting trip into the Trump Era." Read more

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Customers find the historical setting of the book beautiful, bringing back great memories. They also say it's an interesting trip into the Trump Era.

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"...uplifting and historic presidency and Our Journey Together recounts all the best moments . A true gem for all Donald Trump supporters!" Read more

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Customers find the book great, a true gem for Donald Trump supporters, and a nice historical book. They also say the book is beautifully photographed and shares our national treasures.

"...It's a very uplifting and historic presidency and Our Journey Together recounts all the best moments. A true gem for all Donald Trump supporters!" Read more

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" Great for any Trump supporter ." Read more

Customers find the book collection beautiful, larger than expected, and a great addition to their book collection.

"This book is beautiful and large . I purchased as a gift for someone who wanted it and they loved it...." Read more

"beautiful photography and images a great addition to book collection ," Read more

"...The pictures are clear, colorful, and some take up the entire page . She absolutely loves it and couldn't stop thanking us." Read more

" Excellent coffee table book . I wish if they could use higher quality photos and print them on a better quality paper!Love the book!" Read more

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"...Very pleased with this purchase. Wonderful Book!!! Great Gift for any Trump Supporter .*..." Read more

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Customers find the writing style well written, with high quality fun captions. They also say it's a great book and makes a good gift.

"...Its is full of personalized and even hand written notes in narration . Can’t say all copies will have the binding issue...." Read more

"I enjoy President Trump’s humor, girt and talent for writing interesting books ...." Read more

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The Lessons of Reading Every Book About Trump

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid slammed into Earth, releasing such a thick plume of toxic particles that most of the creatures spared by tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and wildfires died of asphyxiation, cold, or hunger. It was exeunt dinosaurs, along with most life on the planet. In the rebooted world, mammals reigned, despite their high body temperatures (which chewed up calories) and relatively low reproductive rates. For years, this rise was a scientific mystery. How did such inefficient life-forms beat the competition? One explanation is that the dark, wet Earth, newly crowded with decaying matter, became a fungal paradise. Molds flourished and bloomed, colonizing the flesh of cold-blooded vertebrates; meanwhile, the trait that seemed to spell doom for the mammals—their heat—protected them.

I learned this history from a podcast, “Radiolab,” while desperately seeking distraction from an apocalyptic news cycle. (To the episode’s credit, it didn’t end with the words “and that’s how we got Trump.”) The next segment was about the many thousands of species of fungi that are now evolving in response to climate change . Our ancient enemies, it seems, are beginning to tolerate dangerously high temperatures, and could soon gain the ability to thrive in warm-blooded hosts. If they do, a scientist informed the podcast’s warm-blooded host, the age of mammals might be revealed for what it is: an epoch-spanning fluke.

Which brings me to Carlos Lozada’s new book, “ What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era .” Lozada, the nonfiction book critic at the Washington Post , revisits all the books on Donald Trump that he’s read since 2015: about a hundred and fifty titles, each purporting to illuminate the man and his times. (Immediately, the reader is primed for the sequel: “What Was I Thinking.”) One of the book’s standout preoccupations is whether Trump is an asteroid or a fungus. In other words, was the President’s victory a freak event, a chunk of debris that crashed into the country and transformed it forever? Or had Trumpism long been waiting in the soil, its destiny intertwined with ours? As Lozada shows, some Trump books exclaim over the norms that this Administration has broken; others take a longer view, considering the White House’s channelling of dark American traditions. Lozada finds the second approach more useful (the revolution will, and should, be contextualized) but leaves room for the fact that Trump has degraded us, and that some of the rot can be scraped off.

The book’s most original idea is its structure: a taxonomy that presents ten types of Trump book, including the White House “chaos chronicles” (“an endless encore of officials expressing concern”), “heartlandia” (lyrical portraits of Trump voters in flyover country), “Russian lit” (a genre which both looks at Trump’s personal ties to Russia and unpacks his Soviet-style tactics), and activism manuals for the resistance. Each chapter offers an essay made up of loosely connected mini-reviews; because there’s a lot of stylish recapping, the appeal of Lozada’s study can depend on the material being discussed. A chapter on the erosion of truth contains a fascinating précis of “ A Lot of People Are Saying ,” Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum’s tract about “the new conspiracism,” which proceeds via “innuendo and repetition” and “substitutes social validation for scientific validation.” (With Trump, Lozada writes, “there is conspiracy, but no theory.”) A chapter on immigration, which thrums with Lozada’s mixed feelings about what America has come to mean for the hopeful and the suffering—Lozada, originally from Peru, obtained U.S. citizenship in 2014—is enriched by references to “ This Land Is Our Land ,” by Suketu Mehta, and Greg Grandin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history, “ The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America .” For Mehta, Lozada writes, immigration isn’t simply a matter of go-getters with big dreams; it’s “reparations . . . payback for colonialism, for the plunder of resources, for ecological and economic devastation.” Grandin, meanwhile, believes that once Americans lost the “safety valve” of a frontier and became hemmed in by a border, the result was “an extremism turned inward, all-consuming and self-devouring.”

The most entertaining chapter, “The Conservative Pivot,” maps Trump’s effect on the right’s media ecosystem. There are the sycophants, Lozada shows, with their sloppy, hagiographic accounts of the President’s “invincibility.” (Think Jeanine Pirro and Newt Gingrich .) There are the conservative intellectuals, such as Rich Lowry or the military historian Victor Davis Hanson, who labor to dress Trumpism up in tweed. Lozada reserves his most annihilating judgment for the Never Trumpers, who, in a series of books he calls “meh culpas,” bemoan the G.O.P.’s tribalism and obstinance but refuse to examine how the Party got that way. Lozada proposes that the Never Trumpers change their name to Only Trumpers. “Had Trump come close but failed to win the 2016 Republication nomination,” he notes, brilliantly, “the conscience and corrosion of conservatism, the mind of the Right, would remain undisturbed and unexamined. Only with Trump. Maybe they should thank him.”

Lozada’s strengths as a critic are obvious. He is charming, funny, and light on his feet, and his descriptions are exceptionally clear and pithy. Pro-Trump intellectuals “claim to support the president for his principles but they really love him for his enemies,” he writes. And: “Bush hoped to remake the world. Trump just makes it up as he goes along.” This aphoristic style cuts to the quick of complex ideas, making them easy to maneuver in the course of the book’s meta-analysis. Yet Lozada also tends to substitute minor aesthetic judgments for evaluations of a work’s substance, as when he complains that Gregg Jarrett “argues by adverb” and that Robin DiAngelo’s “ White Fragility ” “reads like a pharmaceutical ad for treating whiteness.” (As someone who, initially beguiled by DiAngelo’s ideas, remains curious about the backlash against her, I was eager to hear how Lozada would prosecute his case. Instead, he simply asks the book to “do better.”)

And “What Were We Thinking” ’s complaints can be confusing. Lozada attacks Naomi Klein’s resistance tome “ No Is Not Enough ” for outlining a specific and ambitiously progressive policy platform. (“Demilitarization of police. Free college tuition. One hundred percent renewable energy.”) A few pages later, he announces that “the resistance books are packed with calls for the renewal of the American story but give no clear sense of how to begin.” Lozada also chides Klein, along with the writer Dana Fisher and the social activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham, for excluding moderate and conservative voices from their movement. “The intellectuals of the resistance seem to deliberately alienate prospective foot soldiers, prioritizing the purity of resistance over its expansion,” he writes. But the very next chapter is the one in which Lozada savages the Never Trumpers, suggesting that the issue is less line-drawing per se than where, exactly, the line is drawn.

Did we arrive here because of an asteroid? Mold? Climate change? In one sense, “What Were We Thinking” studies the hazards of trying to pick apart the innumerable contingencies that prop up a moment. Most of the titles being discussed lean on a specific theory or framework, which can’t help but prove incomplete. (At times, Lozada seems to fault the books for this limitation—several interesting-sounding projects are dismissed for their failure to definitively explain, say, the “white working class.”) But, taken together, the hope is that the literature will paint a rich cumulative picture. Through a combination of summary and critique, Lozada is trying to achieve what he believes the authors he’s writing about mostly have not: a genuinely revelatory Trump book.

The conventional wisdom, of course, is that we know all we need to know—and perhaps all there is to know—about who Trump is. Lozada seems to steer around the flatness, the weird transparency, of his subject by suggesting that “the most essential books of the Trump era are scarcely about Trump at all.” There is a hint of circular reasoning here: volumes are assessed for their ability to elucidate the Trump age, yet they are only selected because Lozada believes that they should elucidate the Trump age. At times, one is left with the impression of a critic who has lumped together disparate works in order to have something to criticize.

And, just as Lozada assumes that all books about the present can be made to speak to Trump, he also assumes that all books can be made to speak well . For him, either a work offers insight in the traditional fashion or it inadvertently reveals the folly that helped sweep us to where we are. As the introduction makes clear, “What Were We Thinking” is largely a critical history—a scathing one—which examines intellectual projects that, as Lozada argues, are riddled with “blind spots, resentments, and failures of imagination.” (Exceptions exist: an epilogue singles out the twelve volumes that “helped me make sense of this time,” Lozada writes, and he has a gift, perhaps in spite of himself, for making whatever title he’s describing sound at least a little alluring.) The badness, though, is a feature, not a bug. Sycophantic praise poems by Fox News personalities, self-important nothingburgers by anonymous White House staffers, memoirs that condescend to coal miners or rely heavily on “racial grievance”: according to Lozada, they all uncover something “essential” about our moment.

Sure. But the “good” Trump books make their points more fully than Lozada can, and dissecting the “bad” books—his more central concern—only yields the most obvious truths. If I were Lozada, straining to find meaning in an empty publishing phenomenon, I might take the redundancy dogging his project as a lesson for our time. Once, it was effective to underline Trump’s abnormality. Later, it seemed fitting to situate the Administration’s atrocities within a wider context of disgrace. Both framings—Trump as exception, Trump as steroidal avatar of the country that formed him—have always been true. The difference is that, in 2020, they are equally banal. Watching Lozada press his lively intelligence into what feels, in places, like a critique of itself is its own education in saturation, and in the incentives of a culture that is designed to keep talking long after there’s anything left to say.

Books & Fiction

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An Analysis Of New Books About Donald Trump's Presidency

Several books about the Trump administration's final year, some including interviews with the ex-president, are arriving in bookstores. How do they change what we know about the Trump White House?

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