28 results for "History"

Traitor: a history of American betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump

Rothkopf, David J.
"Political historian and commentator David Rothkopf shows how Trump will be judged by history. (Spoiler alert: not well) in Traitor. Donald Trump is unfit in almost every respect for the high office he holds. But what distinguishes him from every other bad leader the U.S. has had is that he has repeatedly, egregiously, betrayed his country. Regardless of how Senate Republicans have let him off the hook, the facts available to the public show that Trump has met every necessary standard to define his behavior as traitorous. He has clearly broken faith with the people of the country he was chosen to lead, starting long before he took office, then throughout his time in the White House. And we may not yet have seen the last of his crimes. But the story we know so far is so outrageous and disturbing that it raises a question that has never before been presented in American history: is the president of the United States the greatest threat this country faces in the world? We also need to understand how the country has historically viewed such crimes and how it has treated them in the past to place what has happened in perspective. After his examination of traitors including Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, and leaders of the Confederacy, David Rothkopf concludes that Donald Trump and his many abettors have committed the highest-level, greatest, most damaging betrayal in the history of the country"--
Thomas Dunne Books 2020-10-27 241 pages

The divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021

Baker, Peter,Glasser, Susan
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "The most comprehensive and detailed account of the Trump presidency yet published."— The Washington Post • A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker and Financial Times • "The book everyone is talking about."— Politico The inside story of the four years when Donald Trump went to war with Washington, from the chaotic beginning to the violent finale, told by revered journalists Peter Baker of The New York Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker —an ambitious and lasting history of the full Trump presidency that also contains dozens of exclusive scoops and stories from behind the scenes in the White House, from the absurd to the deadly serious. "A sumptuous feast of astonishing tales...The more one reads, the more one wishes to read."—NPR.com • "A beautifully written, utterly dispiriting history of the man who attacked democracy." — The Guardian The bestselling authors of The Man Who Ran Washington argue that Trump was not just lurching from one controversy to another; he was learning to be more like the foreign autocrats he admired. The Divider brings us into the Oval Office for countless scenes both tense and comical, revealing how close we got to nuclear war with North Korea, which cabinet members had a resignation pact, whether Trump asked Japan’s prime minister to nominate him for a Nobel Prize and much more. The book also explores the moral choices confronting those around Trump—how they justified working for a man they considered unfit for office, and where they drew their lines. The Divider is based on unprecedented access to key players, from President Trump himself to cabinet officers, military generals, close advisers, Trump family members, congressional leaders, foreign officials and others, some of whom have never told their story until now.
Anchor Books 2023-09-19 731 pages

Where law ends: inside the Mueller investigation

Weissmann, Andrew
In May 2017, Robert Mueller was tapped to lead an inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, coordination by foreign agents with Donald Trump's campaign, and obstruction of justice by the president. Mueller assembled a "dream team" of top prosecutors, and for the next twenty-two months, the investigation was a black box and the subject of endless anticipation and speculation--until April 2019, when the special counsel's report was released. In Where Law Ends, legendary prosecutor Andrew Weissmann--a key player in the Special Counsel's Office--finally pulls back the curtain to reveal exactly what went on inside the investigation, including the heated debates, painful deliberations, and mistakes of the team--not to mention the external efforts by the president and Attorney General William Barr to manipulate the investigation to their political ends. Weissmann puts the reader in the room as Mueller's team made their most consequential decisions, such as whether to subpoena the president, whether to conduct a full financial investigation of Trump, and whether to explicitly recommend obstruction charges against him. Weissmann also details for the first time the debilitating effects that President Trump himself had on the investigation, through his dangling of pardons and his constant threats to shut down the inquiry and fire Mueller, which left the team racing against the clock and essentially fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. In Where Law Ends, Weissmann conjures the camaraderie and esprit de corps of the investigative units led by the enigmatic Mueller, a distinguished public servant who is revealed here, in a way we have never seen him before, as a manager, a colleague, and a very human presence. Weissmann is as candid about the team's mistakes as he is about its successes, and is committed to accurately documenting the historic investigation for future generations to assess and learn from. Ultimately, Where Law Ends is a story about a team of public servants, dedicated to the rule of law, tasked with investigating a president who did everything he could to stand in their way.
Random House 2020 402 pages

Regime change: inside the imperial presidency of Donald Trump

Haberman, Maggie
From the two reporters who have covered him more closely than perhaps anyone else over the past decade comes this definitive portrait of Donald Trump in the White House. Regime Change covers the first year of Trump's second presidency--a term liberated from every constraint that defined his first. The generals who once told him "no" are gone, and the lawyers have learned to pick their battles. His administration has flouted court orders and he has claimed powers that Congress once checked. What remains is a President willing to take enormous risks that have upended global markets and toppled heads of state--an imperial President operating almost entirely on instinct alone. Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented reporting from deep within the administration's most closely guarded rooms, Regime Change takes the reader inside the Situation Room and into the secret Oval Office deliberations that have launched a new war in the Middle East and seen Trump seal the border, deploy National Guard troops into cities, and send immigration agents into deadly clashes with protesters. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan bring us behind the scenes of a presidency that has transformed the culture, the Justice Department into an agent of retribution against the President's enemies, and the office itself into a brazen vehicle for profit. They reveal a second term propelled by a historical irony that Trump himself has come to understand: that the indictments, the convictions, the assassination attempts, and four years of exile made him not weaker but far more powerful, more vengeful, and more willing to gamble than any President in modern history. This is the story of how Trump has used that power, who has tried to stop him, and why nearly all of them have failed. It is also the story of something American journalists are more accustomed to chronicling in distant capitals than in their own: a President who has fundamentally altered the nature of the office he holds--and how the rest of the world understands American power. It is an account of Regime Change right here in America--a landmark real-time history of a modern presidency like no other.
Simon & Schuster 2026-06 464 pages

Donald Trump v. the United States: inside the struggle to stop a President

Schmidt, Michael S. (Journalist)
"In the early days of the Trump presidency, the people who work in the institutions that make America America saw Trump up close in the Oval Office and became convinced that they had to stand up to an unbound president. These officials faced a situation without parallel in American history: What do you do, and who do you call, if you are the only one standing between the president, his extraordinary powers, and the abyss? Michael S. Schmidt's 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." -- inside front jacket flap.
Random House 2023 471 pages

Midnight in Washington: how we almost lost our democracy and still could

Schiff, Adam B.
"From the congressman who led the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump, the vital inside account of American democracy in its darkest hour, and a warning that the forces of autocracy unleashed by Trump remain as potent as ever. In the years leading up to the election of Donald Trump, Congressman Adam Schiff had already been sounding the alarm over the resurgence of autocracy around the world, and the threat this posed to the United States. But as he led the probe into Donald Trump's Russia and Ukraine-related abuses of presidential power, Schiff came to the terrible conclusion that the principal threat to American democracy now came from within. In Midnight in Washington, Schiff argues that the Trump presidency has so weakened our institutions and compromised the Republican Party that the peril will last for years, requiring unprecedented vigilance against the growing and dangerous appeal of authoritarianism. The congressman chronicles step by step just how our democracy was put at such risk, and traces his own path to meeting the crisis--from serious prosecutor, to congressman with an expertise in national security and a reputation for bipartisanship, to liberal lightning rod, scourge of the right, and archenemy of a president. Schiff takes us inside his team of impeachment managers and their desperate defense of the constitution amid the rise of a distinctly American brand of autocracy. Deepening our understanding of prominent public moments, Schiff reveals the private struggles, the internal conflicts, and the triumphs of courage that came with defending the republic against a lawless president--but also the slow surrender of people that he had worked with and admired to the dangerous immorality of a president engaged in an historic betrayal of his office. Schiff's fight for democracy is one of the great dramas of our time, told by the man who became the president's principal antagonist. It is a story that began with Trump but does not end with him, taking us through the disastrous culmination of the presidency and Schiff's account of January 6, 2021, and how the anti-democratic forces Trump unleashed continue to define his party, making the future of democracy in America more uncertain than ever."--Publisher's website.
Random House 2022-08-16 518 pages

Collision of power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post

Baron, Martin
"A monumental work of nonfiction that gives a first-row seat to the epic power struggle between politics, money, media, and tech -- for fans of Maggie Haberman's Confidence Man and Jane Mayer's Dark Money. Marty Baron took charge of The Washington Post newsroom in 2013, after nearly a dozen years leading The Boston Globe. Just seven months into his new job, Baron received explosive news: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, would buy the Post, marking a sudden end to control by the venerated family that had presided over the paper for 80 years. Just over two years later, Donald Trump won the presidency. Now, the capital's newspaper, owned by one of the world's richest men, was tasked with reporting on a president who had campaigned against the press as the "lowest form of humanity." Pressures on Baron and his colleagues were immense and unrelenting, having to meet the demands of their new owner while contending with a president who waged a war of unprecedented vitriol and vengeance against the media. In the face of Trump's unceasing attacks, Baron steadfastly managed the Post's newsroom. Their groundbreaking and award-winning coverage included stories about Trump's purported charitable giving, misconduct by the Secret Service, and Roy Moore's troubling sexual history. At the same time, Baron managed a restive staff during a period of rapidly changing societal dynamics around gender and race. In Collision of Power, Baron recounts this with the tenacity of a reporter and the sure hand of an experienced editor. The result is elegant and revelatory-an urgent exploration of the nature of power in the 21st century"--
Flatiron Books 2023 548 pages

Trumpocracy: the corruption of the American Republic

Frum, David
"As the President of the United States, Donald Trump continually voices admiration for brutal strongmen such as Russia's Vladimir Putin, the Philippines' Roderigo Duterte, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Egypt's Abedel Fattah el-Sisi. He has threatened the American mainstream media, obsessed over leaks, and worked mostly through executive orders. Some Americans still believe this is part of a carefully crafted plan to bring authoritarianism to our country. As Frum reveals, carefully crafted or not, this is where Trump is taking us. In this thoughtful and hard-hitting book, he issues a warning for democracy and America's future: all over the world countries are being destroyed by similar populist bumblers, making impulsive decisions and ignoring traditions, Quietly, steadily, he and his administration are damaging the tenets and accepted practices of American democracy, perhaps irrevocably. As Trump and his family enrich themselves, the presidency itself falls into the hands of the generals and financiers who surround him. During his own White House tenure, Frum witnessed the ways the presidency is limited not by law, but by tradition, propriety, and public outcry, all now weakened. Whether the Trump presidency lasts 2, 4, or 8 more years, he has changed the nature of the office for the worse, and likely for decades. In this powerful and eye-opening book, Frum makes clear that the hard work of recovery starts at home. Trumpocracy outlines how Trump could push America towards illiberalism, what the consequences could be for our nation and our everyday lives, and what we can do to prevent it"--
Harper 2018-01-16 301 pages

Find me the votes: a hard-charging Georgia prosecutor, a rogue president, and the plot to steal an American election

Isikoff, Michael,Klaidman, Daniel
"In Find Me the Votes, two years of immersive reporting by Isikoff and Klaidman has produced the most authoritative and dramatic account yet of a defeated president's conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and how a local Georgia prosecutor--a daughter of the civil rights movement--decided to indict him and his allies for his desperate attempt to hold on to power. From the beginning, Fani Willis saw Donald Trump's crimes as a voting rights case, and an attempt by the former president to deprive the citizens of Georgia of the franchise, a right for which her forebears had bled. Isikoff and Klaidman take us deep inside both the nerve center of Trump's effort to steal the election and the DA's team of prosecutors as they build their case against the president. Their reporting reveals new information on the plot to criminally seize voting equipment in several states; Sidney Powell's attempt to obtain preemptive pardons from Trump; and revelatory communications between the president and his co-conspirators. We see the prosecution take shape in Willis's office in the face of heinous threats of violent retaliation from Trump's supporters. With blockbuster original reporting and exclusive access to thousands of secret documents, emails, text messages, and audio recordings, Find Me the Votes is investigative journalism at its finest. The authors also conducted exclusive interviews with key sources in the Trump conspiracy, as well as with the president's top targets, including Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger and the Fulton County DA's team-featuring hours of interviews with Fani Willis herself. This is riveting contemporary history, and a lasting account of the prosecution of a president who tested the rule of law as no president ever had before. Isikoff and Klaidman have written a story for the ages."--
12/Twelve 2024 329 pages

The demagogue's playbook: the battle for American democracy from the founders to Trump

Posner, Eric A.
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Pick What Happens to Democracy When a Demagogue Comes to Power? "It is hard to imagine understanding the Trump presidency and its significance without reading this book.” —Bob Bauer, Former Chief Counsel to President Barack Obama What—and who—is a demagogue? How did America’s Founders envision the presidency? What should a constitutional democracy look like—and how can it be fixed when it appears to be broken? Something is definitely wrong with Donald Trump’s presidency, but what exactly? The extraordinary negative reaction to Trump’s election—by conservative intellectuals, liberals, Democrats, and global leaders alike—goes beyond ordinary partisan and policy disagreements. It reflects genuine fear about the vitality of our constitutional system. The Founders, reaching back to classical precedents, feared that their experiment in mass self-government could produce a demagogue: a charismatic ruler who would gain and hold on to power by manipulating the public rather than by advancing the public good. President Trump, who has played to the mob and attacked institutions from the judiciary to the press, appears to embody these ideas. How can we move past his rhetoric and maintain faith in our great nation? In The Demagogue’s Playbook , acclaimed legal scholar Eric A. Posner offers a blueprint for how America can prevent the rise of another demagogue and protect the features of a democracy that help it thrive—and restore national greatness, for one and all. “Cuts through the hyperbole and hysteria that often distorts assessments of our republic, particularly at this time.” — Alan Taylor, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History
St. Martin's Griffin 2021-06-29 320 pages

The list: a week-by-week reckoning of Trump's first year

Siskind, Amy
"The shocking first-draft history of the Trump regime, and its clear authoritarian impulses, based on the viral Internet phenom "The Weekly List." In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump's election as president, Amy Siskind, a former Wall Street executive and the founder of The New Agenda, began compiling a list of actions taken by the Trump regime that pose a threat to our democratic norms. Under the headline: "Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you'll remember" Siskind's "Weekly List" began as a project she shared with friends, but it soon went viral and now has more than half a million viewers every week. Compiled in one volume for the first time, The List is a first draft history and a comprehensive accounting of Donald Trump's first year. Beginning with Trump's acceptance of white supremacists the week after the election and concluding a year to the day later, we watch as Trump and his regime chips away at the rights and protections of marginalized communities, of women, of us all, via Twitter storms, unchecked executive action, and shifting rules and standards. The List chronicles not only the scandals that made headlines but just as important, the myriad smaller but still consequential unprecedented acts that otherwise fall through cracks. It is this granular detail that makes The List such a powerful and important book. For everyone hoping to #resistTrump, The List is a must-have guide to what we as a country have lost in the wake of Trump's election. #Thisisnotnormal"--
Bloomsbury Publishing 2018 509 pages

Howard Stern comes again

Stern, Howard
Rock stars and rap gods. Comedy legends and A-list actors. Supermodels and centerfolds. Moguls and mobsters. A president. Over his four-decade career in radio, Howard Stern has interviewed thousands of personalities -- discussing sex, relationships, money, fame, spirituality, and success with the boldest of bold-faced names. But which interviews are his favorites? It's one of the questions he gets asked most frequently. Howard Stern Comes Again delivers his answer. Tracy Morgan opens up about his near-fatal car crash. Lady Gaga divulges her history with cocaine. Madonna reminisces on her relationship with Tupac Shakur. Bill Murray waxes philosophical on the purpose of life. Jerry Seinfeld offers a master class on comedy. Harvey Weinstein denies the existence of the so-called casting couch. An array of creative visionaries weigh in on what Stern calls "the climb"--The stories of how they struggled and eventually prevailed. Interspersed throughout are selections from the Howard Stern Show archives with Donald Trump that depict his own climb: transforming from Manhattan tabloid fixture to reality TV star to president of the United States. Stern also tells of his Moby Dick-like quest to land an interview with Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the 2016 election. He speaks with extraordinary candor about a variety of subjects, including his overwhelming insecurity early in his career, his revolutionary move from terrestrial radio to SiriusXM, and his belief in the power of psychotherapy. As Stern notes in the introduction: "The interviews collected here represent my best work and show my personal evolution. But they don't just show my evolution. Gathered together like this, they show the evolution of popular culture over the past quarter century."
Simon & Schuster 2019 549 pages

The cruelty is the point: why Trump's America endures / Adam Serwer

Serwer, Adam
"To many, our most shocking political crises appear unprecedented--un-American, even. But they are not, writes The Atlantic's Adam Serwer in this prescient essay collection, which dissects the most devastating moments in recent memory to reveal deeply entrenched dynamics, patterns as old as the country itself. The January 6 insurrection, anti-immigrant sentiment, and American authoritarianism all have historic roots that explain their continued power with or without President Donald Trump--a fact borne out by what has happened since his departure from the White House. Serwer argues that Trump is not the cause, he is a symptom. Serwer's phrase "the cruelty is the point" became among the most-used descriptions of Trump's era, but as this book demonstrates, it resonates across centuries. The essays here combine revelatory reporting, searing analysis, and a clarity that's bracing. In this new, expanded version of his bestselling debut, Serwer elegantly dissects white supremacy's profound influence on our political system, looking at the persistence of the Lost Cause, the past and present of police unions, the mythology of migration, and the many faces of anti-Semitism. In so doing, he offers abundant proof that our past is present and demonstrates the devastating costs of continuing to pretend it's not. The Cruelty Is the Point dares us, the reader, to not look away."--
One World 2022-09-20 404 pages

American resistance: the inside story of how the deep state saved the nation

Rothkopf, David J.
What nearly happened during the Trump years could have been so much worse: the USA came close to wars, abuses of power, cruelty, and dysfunction at the highest levels of our government. Rothkopf shows that a small number of men and women, many from the top ranks of the Trump administration-- life-long Republicans-- risked everything to honor their oaths to the Constitution. Many of the worst and most dangerous ideas of a rogue president were defeated by the very people he put in positions of trust. Rothkopf celebrates a vital victory-- but offers a bleak warning for the future. -- adapted from jacket
PublicAffairs 2022 275 pages

The case for impeachment

Lichtman, Allan J.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Lichtman has written what may be the most important book of the year.” —The Hill "It is still striking to see the full argument unfold and realize that you don’t have to be a zealot to imagine some version of it happening…Lies. Abuse of power. Treason. Crimes against humanity. Martial law. Lichtman throws everything Trump’s way.." —Washington Post Professor Allan J. Lichtman, who has correctly forecasted thirty years of presidential outcomes, makes the case for impeaching the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump In the fall of 2016, Distinguished Professor of History at American University Allan J. Lichtman made headlines when he predicted that Donald J. Trump would defeat the heavily favored Democrat, Hillary Clinton, to win the presidential election. Now, in clear, nonpartisan terms, Lichtman lays out the reasons Congress could remove Trump from the Oval Office: his ties to Russia before and after the election, the complicated financial conflicts of interest at home and abroad, and his abuse of executive authority. The Case for Impeachment also offers a fascinating look at presidential impeachments throughout American history, including the often-overlooked story of Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, details about Richard Nixon’s resignation, and Bill Clinton’s hearings. Lichtman shows how Trump exhibits many of the flaws (and more) that have doomed past presidents. As the Nixon Administration dismissed the reporting of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as “character assassination” and “a vicious abuse of the journalistic process,” Trump has attacked the “dishonest media,” claiming, “the press should be ashamed of themselves.” Historians, legal scholars, and politicians alike agree: we are in politically uncharted waters—the durability of our institutions is being undermined and the public’s confidence in them is eroding, threatening American democracy itself. Most citizens—politics aside—want to know where the country is headed. Lichtman argues, with clarity and power, that for Donald Trump’s presidency, smoke has become fire.
HarperCollins 2017-04-18 290 pages

Trump's war: his battle for America

Savage, Michael
Conservative radio host Michael Savage examines the initial appointments, speeches, tweets and history of Donald Trump and offers his insights and analysis. President Trump has many challenges in delivering on the promises he made to millions of American voters. He faces relentless opposition from special interests in both parties who stand to lose trillions if Trump's America First policies become the law of the land. Savage has been on the front line of this fight for decades and knows what Trump and his administration are up against. He lays out a path to victory for the new, conservative American revolutionaries in Trump's War.
Center Street 2017-03-14 280 pages

Enemy of the people: Trump's war on the press, the new McCarthyism, and the threat to American democracy

Kalb, Marvin L.
Shortly after assuming office in January 2017, President Donald Trump accused the press of being an enemy of the American people. Attacks on the media had been a hallmark of Trump's presidential campaign, but this charge marked a dramatic turning point: language like this ventured into dangerous territory. Twentieth-century dictators notably, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao had all denounced their critics, especially the press, as enemies of the people. Their goal was to delegitimize the work of the press as fake news and create confusion in the public mind about what's real and what isn't; what can be trusted and what can't be. That, it seems, is also Trump's goal. In Enemy of the People , Marvin Kalb, an award-winning American journalist with more than six decades of experience both as a journalist and media observer, writes with passion about why we should fear for the future of American democracy because of the unrelenting attacks by the Trump administration on the press. As his new book shows, the press has been a bulwark in the defense of democracy. Kalb writes about Edward R. Murrow's courageous reporting on Senator Joseph McCarthy's red scare theatrics in the early 1950s, which led to McCarthy's demise. He reminds us of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's reporting in the early 1970s that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Today, because of revolutionary changes in journalism, no Murrow is ready at the battlements. Journalism has been severely weakened. Yet, without a virile, strong press, democracy is in peril. Kalb's book is a frightening indictment of President Trump's efforts to delegitimize the American press and put the future of our democracy in question.
Brookings institution press 2018-09-25 174 pages