Summary: Donald Trump V. The United States: Michael S. Schmidt


Book Description

NOTE! This book is a summary and not intended to replace Michael Schmidt's original work in any way or fashion. New York Times journalist Michael Schmidt investigates that rogue of a President, Trump, as he spats with his government. Many in the FBI and House would like to see Trump gone and his thirst for power to fire people who are not loyal to him cut off first. Schmidt, who won a Pulitzer Prize, takes the biographical perspective for two key players who play significant roles in Trump's affairs: FBI Director James Comey and Senior Legal Counsel Don McGahn. Trump's style of running the White House was not only unorthodox among an initial backdrop of circus-level chaos and incompetence but often threatening and abusive. A dossier based on rumor and speculation and paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton would give rise to accusations of Russian collusion before Trump could even be inaugurated. Trump had only spent one day in Moscow but stood accused of having time to watch Russian prostitutes urinate on a bed once slept on by Obama and his lovely wife, Michelle. Comey was sure that Trump was obstructing justice for Michael Flynn, and his claims and actions would lead to the Mueller investigation, which consumed two years of the Trump Presidency. Schmidt is obsessed with detail and reigns highly skilled at working informants. The savvy workaholic journalist even gets a one-on-one interview with Trump at his Florida golf resort, which Trump's chief aide tries to break off.




Peril


Book Description

The transition from President Donald J. Trump to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. stands as one of the most dangerous periods in American history. But as #1 internationally bestselling author Bob Woodward and acclaimed reporter Robert Costa reveal for the first time, it was far more than just a domestic political crisis. Woodward and Costa interviewed more than 200 people at the center of the turmoil, resulting in more than 6,000 pages of transcripts—and a spellbinding and definitive portrait of a nation on the brink. This classic study of Washington takes readers deep inside the Trump White House, the Biden White House, the 2020 campaign, and the Pentagon and Congress, with eyewitness accounts of what really happened. Intimate scenes are supplemented with never-before-seen material from secret orders, transcripts of confidential calls, diaries, emails, meeting notes and other personal and government records, making Peril an unparalleled history. It is also the first inside look at Biden’s presidency as he began his presidency facing the challenges of a lifetime: the continuing deadly pandemic and millions of Americans facing soul-crushing economic pain, all the while navigating a bitter and disabling partisan divide, a world rife with threats, and the hovering, dark shadow of the former president.




Donald Trump v. The United States


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • With unparalleled reporting, a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter chronicles the clash between a president and the officials of his own government who tried to stop him. “A meticulously reported volume that clearly benefits from the author’s extraordinary access . . . [a] startling dissection of the Trump presidency.”—The New York Times Donald Trump v. The United States tells the dramatic, high-stakes story of those who felt compelled to confront and try to contain the most powerful man in the world as he shredded norms and sought to expand his power. Michael S. Schmidt takes readers inside the defining events of the presidency, chronicles them up close, and records the clash between an increasingly emboldened president and those around him, who find themselves trying to thwart the president they had pledged to serve, unsure whether he is acting in the interest of the country, his ego, his family business, or Russia. Through their eyes and ears, we observe an epic struggle. Drawing on secret FBI and White House documents and confidential sources inside federal law enforcement and the West Wing, Donald Trump v. The United States is vital journalism from a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter that records the shocking reality of a presidency like no other. It is a riveting contemporary history and a lasting account of just how fragile and vulnerable the institutions of American democracy really are.




Antidote to Trumpism


Book Description

Antidote to Trumpism is a wide-ranging collection of essays meant to help Americans embrace intellectual honesty, improve their critical thinking skills, and avoid being deceived by propaganda. The most important chapters explore: how to improve our understanding of the way our government functions; how the Trump administration has attacked the rule of law and our Constitution; the importance of protecting our democracy and our environment; and interesting political, religious, and scientific concepts. Other essays discuss how to deal with anxiety disorders, food allergies, and rosacea. Most of the chapters end with a list of recommended texts that will help those interested in learning more about the subjects discussed.




Liberal Privilege


Book Description




The Lost Future


Book Description

A timely and compelling argument for a revitalized and restructured global politics The future seems increasingly uncertain. Our democracies are failing to prevent financial crises, energy shortages, climate change, and war—so how can we look to the future with confidence? Jan Zielonka argues that it is democracy’s shortsightedness that makes politics stumble in our increasingly connected world. With our governments still confined to the borders of nation-states, defending the short-term interests of present-day voters, the consequences for future generations are dire. In this incisive account, Zielonka makes a bold case for a new politics of time and space. He considers how democracy should adjust to the world of high speed, and he questions our everyday experiences as citizens: Is it acceptable for authorities and firms to monitor our whereabouts? Why is the distribution of time and space so unequal? And, most crucially, can we construct a new system of governance that will allow us to plan ahead with certainty?




What Were We Thinking


Book Description

The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic uses the books of the Trump era to argue that our response to this presidency reflects the same failures of imagination that made it possible. As a book critic for The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada has read some 150 volumes claiming to diagnose why Trump was elected and what his presidency reveals about our nation. Many of these, he’s found, are more defensive than incisive, more righteous than right. In What Were We Thinking, Lozada uses these books to tell the story of how we understand ourselves in the Trump era, using as his main characters the political ideas and debates at play in America today. He dissects works on the white working class like Hillbilly Elegy; manifestos from the anti-Trump resistance like On Tyranny and No Is Not Enough; books on race, gender, and identity like How to Be an Antiracist and Good and Mad; polemics on the future of the conservative movement like The Corrosion of Conservatism; and of course plenty of books about Trump himself. Lozada’s argument is provocative: that many of these books—whether written by liberals or conservatives, activists or academics, Trump’s true believers or his harshest critics—are vulnerable to the same blind spots, resentments, and failures that gave us his presidency. But Lozada also highlights the books that succeed in illuminating how America is changing in the 21st century. What Were We Thinking is an intellectual history of the Trump era in real time, helping us transcend the battles of the moment and see ourselves for who we really are.




Summary: Rage: Bob Woodward: Disloyal: A Memoir: Michael Cohen: Too Much Is Never Enough: Mary L. Trump: Donald Trump V. The United States: Michael S. Schmidt


Book Description

NOTE: Summaries are not intended to replace or substitute for the original books. Woodward has the scoop no one else does for his book Rage because he interviewed Trump 17 times and climbed into his mind and thoughts over seven chaotic months. Trump characterized the way he felt with an apt metaphor: "Dynamite behind every door." Michael Cohen, in Disloyal, admits he was mesmerized by Trump like a cult member, began to see himself breaking his moral code, but stuck with Trump for money, power, and fame. Cohen boasts that he knew Trump better than his own family, and it was not a pretty sight. He saw Trump as a sociopathic mobster boss who would do anything to win and destroy anybody who challenged him in his quest for success. Cohen dumps a truckload of Trump family skeletons at the reader's feet and then picks them up one by one and executes a meticulous show-and-tell. Mary L Trump, in Too Much and Never Enough, claims Trump is an unlovable, bullying, cruel, crass, racist, sociopathic fraud with delusions of grandeur. Rather than working for the American people who voted for him, Mary suggests he is only out for Trump and his children, for the empire, for more power, riches, and fame. In Trump V. The United States, New York Times journalist Michael Schmidt investigates Trump as he spats with his government. Many in the FBI--and above-- and House would like to see Trump gone. Schmidt, who won a Pulitzer Prize, takes the biographical perspective for two key players who play significant roles in Trump's affairs: FBI Director James Comey and Senior Legal Counsel Don McGahn. Comey was sure that Trump was obstructing justice for Michael Flynn, and his claims and actions would lead to the Mueller investigation, which consumed two years of the Trump Presidency.




Clash


Book Description

Donald Trump’s presidency was marked by angry attacks on journalists, an extraordinary ability to capture the media spotlight, a flood of disinformation from the White House, and bitter partisanship reflected in the media. Trump’s dysfunctional relationship with the press affected how the United States dealt with the crises of COVID-19, climate change, social unrest due to systemic racism, and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But Trump’s troubled relationship with the press didn’t happen by chance. Clash explores the political, economic, social, and technological forces that have shaped the relationship between U.S. presidents and the press during times of crisis. In addition to Trump’s presidency, Clash examines those of John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Some of these presidents faced military or international crises. Others were challenged by economic downturns or political scandals. And sometimes the survival of America’s system of government was at stake. By examining what happened between presidents and the press during these pivotal times, Clash helps us understand how we arrived at our current troubled state of affairs. It concludes with recommendations for strengthening the role the press plays in keeping presidents accountable.




How Autocrats Seek Power


Book Description

Chronicling and analyzing resistance to the threat that autocracy poses to American liberal democracy, this book provides the definitive account of the rise of Trump’s populist support in 2016, and his failed efforts to nullify the result of the 2020 election. This book is about the threat of autocracy, which antedated Donald Trump and will persist after he leaves the stage. Autocracy negates both liberalism—which includes the protection of fundamental rights, the rule of law, separation of powers, and respect for specialist expertise—and democracy—which requires that the state be responsible to an electorate composed of all eligible voters—by concentrating unconstrained power in a single individual. Anticipating defeat in the 2016 election, Trump attacked suggestions that he had sought, or even benefited from, Russian assistance despite the evidence, and he made repeated claims of election fraud. In 2020, fearful that his mishandling of the pandemic had alienated voters, he intensified the allegations of fraud, demanding recounts, pressuring state legislatures and state election officials, advancing bizarre conspiracy theories, and finally, calling for a massive demonstration, urging protesters to march to the Capitol to pressure Congress, promising to accompany them. But as this book documents, Trump’s efforts to nullify the result of the 2020 election failed. As the courts rejected his numerous challenges, state election officials loyally performed their statutory duties, the Justice Department found no evidence of fraud, and politicians from all sides certified Biden’s victory, this book traces the many, and varied, forms of the defense of liberal democracy located within both the state and civil society, including law (judges, government lawyers, and private practitioners), the media, NGOs, science (and other forms of expertise), and civil servants (in federal, state, and local government). Evaluating their efficacy, the book maintains, is vital if—as history has repeatedly taught us—the price of liberal democracy, like that of liberty itself, is eternal vigilance. This definitive account and analysis of Trumpism and the resistance to it will appeal to scholars, students, and others with interests in politics, populism, and the rule of law and, more specifically, to those concerned with resisting the threat that autocracy poses to liberal democracy.