Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Donald Trump doubled down on belligerence and bombast in clawing back the presidency, according to this raucous campaign narrative. Journalist Wolff (Landslide) gives a fly-on-the-wall account of Trump's 2024 election run, anchored by a Technicolor portrait of the candidate's egotism, wild mood swings, and steadfast rejection of reality. (Informed that a Rasmussen poll had him up by three points, he replied, "Have them fix that; it's ten points.") Much of the book covers Trump's trials for sexual abuse, real estate fraud, and hush money payments; Trump's aggressiveness in these proceedings, Wolff contends, brought him an avalanche of endorsements and campaign donations. Wolff also draws vivid sketches of Trump's flatterers and sacrificial lambs, from communications aide Natalie Harp, who stoked him with conspiracy theories and love notes--"I never want to bring you anything but joy"--to the hapless lawyers subjected to his rants. Drawing on insights from members of Trump's circle who have spent years analyzing him, Wolff offers rich interpretations of his psyche: "Trump is... a raw nerve," his "personal grievances" expressed at "any moment" as "public performances." Wolff's focus on personality, however, gives short shrift to politics--describing a meeting with Teamsters during which Trump won them over, for instance, he fixates on the odd color of Trump's hands. Still, this is a singular and penetrating diagnosis of the president's character and managerial style. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Back for more. Bad news is the best kind in the "inverted reality" of a Trump presidential campaign. In Wolff's fourth book about Trump, his subject is mentally "scattered" but politically unkillable, only strengthened by his assorted legal problems. "If you refuse to accept your disgrace, it becomes righteousness," Wolff writes. Indeed, Trump's "delusion" that the 2020 election was rigged impels him onward--and upward. His campaign effectively starts in August 2022, when FBI agents seize classified documents from Trump's Florida club, inspiring loyalists to donate $22 million. Subsequently indicted in four criminal cases, he's soon up by 50 points in the GOP's nomination contest. Remarkably, he succeeds "by making all prosecutors and judges his enemy," Wolff writes. Wolff's political analysis is fitfully insightful, but he's mainly here for the gossip. Trump, he reports, suggested Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo for vice president; likened himself to Nelson Mandela; spread scurrilous rumors about Chuck Schumer and Michelle Obama; and wanted to sue Democrats to recover money he spent competing against a candidate--Joe Biden--who quit. Wolff's anecdotes tend to rely on anonymous sources, so it's impossible to judge their worth. Why did Trump win? In part because he has "bad lawyers." They clog the courts with outrageous motions "that would embarrass respectable lawyers." But Wolff's most sardonic jab hits Trump's opponent. After Biden's confused debate performance, Wolff deadpans, Jill Biden arrives "to take her husband to hospice." Improbably, a youngish Trump aide develops a "lovestruck adulation" for her boss, emerging as a major figure in the book. Wolff quotes at length from her cringey letters to Trump and mocks her in his strange closing sentence. Given Trump's many powerful enablers, Wolff might've found a more worthy target. A mordant, murkily sourced account of the 2024 election. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
