Anyone who has watched a Trump press conference will be familiar with the president’s refusals to directly answer questions, his misdirection, and the set pieces he has repeated dozens of times. Although the headlines from the book have already been blared across the media, especially the president’s early knowledge of the virus’ severity, many of the conversations are notable for their banality, touched with brutality (Trump’s appreciation for strongmen like Turkish leader Recep Edergon and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un) and sprinkled with a heavy layer of déjà vu. The second half of the book details the 17 taped conversations Woodward conducted with Trump, before and during the COVID-19 crisis. Woodward paints sympathetic pictures of both Coats and Mattis, who were clearly unattributed sources, detailing how Coats agonized over some of the president’s actions and Mattis prayed at the National Cathedral’s War Memorial as he contemplated war with North Korea. It details the personal journeys of those who got off the Trump train, particularly Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, and James Mattis, secretary of defense, commonly known as the grownups in the room, or “overconfident idiots,” as Jared Kushner calls them, happily noting they’re gone. The first picks up where Fear (2018), his chronicle of the first years of the Trump presidency, left off. presidents for the last 50 years, offers two books in one here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |