Fear: Trump in the White House

First, “Fear” is an interesting behind the scenes description of how Trump’s White House works, in 42 chapters, 357 pages. It is mostly chronological, essentially beginning just after the eelction and ending February, 2018. It is a rather quick read with a fair amount of dialog. For those who have kept up with the news since mid-2016, there will not be many new incidents, but what is likely to grab your attention is a good bit more detail on how all the players interact with each other, how decisions are made, and how they are implemented – and not implemented.Secondly, When advanced copies of the book were released about a week before the pub date, it seemed that all the papers and news stations could focus on was “idiot”, “moron”, and a few other inflammatory asides, an unintentional (?) disservice to the book. There is no fire here, nor fury. Rather, “Fear” is a fair, balanced look at U.S. leadership, 2017. Some successes, too many failures. None of which should come as a big surprise to anyone.Thirdly, Sources. In twenty-eight pages of Source Notes, Woodward prefaces each chapter’s notes with: “The information in this chapter comes primarily from multiple deep background interviews with firsthand sources.” There are many one-on-one conversations between staff and Trump that are quoted in the book, and we know that Trump was not interviewed for the book, so… Interesting to keep that in mind when reading “Fear”. One last point re sources and “Fear” - not all of the focus all the time is on Trump. There is a huge supporting cast here, including Kelly, Bannon, Priebus, Cohn, Porter, Conway, Graham, Tillerson, Hicks, Ivanka, Jared, Dowd, McMaster, Sessions, Pompeo, Mattis, Pence, Mnuchin and Navarro. Some come off much better than others, and some don’t. Yes, “Fear” changed my perception of several of these players, some for the better, some for the worse. More on that below.Now, for a bit more detail. In the first 20% of the book, Bannon and to a lesser degree, Conway, play significant roles. Manafort seems to have done little of significance during his brief term as campaign manager except worry about his personal finances. With only weeks to go before the election the “grab her by the …..” tape explodes, and some suggest Trump quit the race. Bannon elbows everyone aside and takes over the campaign, still seeing hope, feeling strongly that Clinton is very beatable. He describes her as “joyless”, coming across as too practiced and with a poorly focused campaign (no mention of the economy, stupid). These and a few other comments are the best analyses of Clinton and her mismanaged campaign that I have read, including Clinton’s own “What Happened”. Trump is elected and Bannon (literally) and Conway (figuratively) disappear. And replaced by a host of others.One of the more entertaining passages appears soon after, the hiring of Gary Cohn, former CEO of Goldman Sachs. They meet for the first time and Trump is impressed. He suggests a deputy position though he isn’t clear on the duties vis-à-vis an assistant, deputy assistant etc., nor which department so he asks Cohn what department he wants. Cohn makes it clear that he is not interested in a deputy anything and he expects a cabinet position. Trump suggests Treasury, despite the fact that Mnuchin is in the room and was recently offered that job. I will leave the “what happens next” for you to discover.There are a number of passages that deal with educating the new president. Not all of the attempts were successful. Early on, Cohn tries to explain money, specifically the US deficit. He gives a quick overview of bonds, interest rate impacts, growth, debt ceilings, etc. Trump asks “why not just print money?” Cohn explains the costs of printing money and its impacts on economic factors. At the end of the session, Trump comes back again and again to printing money. On other issues, specifically trade deficits and tariffs, the White House was somewhat split. Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro pushed for tariffs while Mnuchin, Porter, and Cohn were opposed. Trump ended one meeting recognizing a strong case had been made for free trade but acknowledging that though he couldn’t make a counter argument, he liked tariffs, and he wasn’t going to change his mind.On occasion, Woodward reveals a softer side to the President. Trump was genuinely moved by the cruel deaths of the youngest victims of the Syrian gas attack. He was also very upset at attending a service at Dover AFB, greeting the remains of a fallen hero. He spoke at some length with on the phone with surviving family members, adding his own, somewhat made-up but much appreciated personal comments to the prepared notes in front of him.“Fear” covers an incredible first year of a presidency, filled with daily “breaking news” and “distractions. Woodward has done an excellent job of choosing critical events, and in most cases adding a good bit more to what we may have heard on news broadcasts or read in the paper…..or Facebook, or….. I felt he also did an excellent job of choosing the supporting characters upon whom he focused. There were many passages starring Cohn, Mattis, and most surprising to me, Rob Porter. Until I read “Fear” I dismissed Porter as somewhat of an errand guy, a paper shuffler. When he left the White House, I was a bit stunned to learn that he was Harvard grad, Harvard Law School grad, and Rhodes Scholar – and a bit of a White House Radar O’Reilly, the guy who gets things done and keeps the boss out of trouble. To a lesser extent, I was impressed a bit by Reince Priebus, while unsuited for the Chief of Staff job, occasionally and at some critical junctures, a peace-maker. In my view, Tillerson and McMaster do not come off as well as I expected; based on what I read here I would characterize their contributions as a good bit less than what I expected and had concluded even upon their terminations. Similarly, there are some White House big names with relatively few mentions, which of course can be both good and bad news for them. In that group I would include John Kelly, Conway, Ivanka, Pence and the three to six communications directors over the period. Read the book and come up with your own slotting.I recommend “Fear” highly, regardless of the reader’s politics. I hope there will be a Fear 2018 (but I don’t want to go further than that).

I just finished reading “Fear” by Bob Woodward. It describes President Trump’s story from the last days of the Trump Presidential campaign in 2016 through early 2018. This book appears to be well sourced - there are 26 pages of source notes in the back by my count. My perception is that Woodward has done his best to honestly describe the events and reactions within the Trump White House.I had previously read “Fire and Fury” by Michael Wolff and “Unhinged” by Omarosa Newman. I am reminded of the story of the blind men describing an elephant. Omarosa described President Trump through the lens of her personal experiences with Trump starting from her days on the first season of “The Apprentice” and through her time with the Trump White House. Michael Wolff seems to draw especially heavily on information from Steve Bannon. Woodward’s book seems to draw from more sources within the Trump White House and is somewhat broader because of that.At first I was puzzled over the title “Fear”. Trump is quoted a few times in the book as saying or implying that the essence of power is to inspire fear in others. It’s something straight from “The Prince” by Machiavelli who says that it is better to be feared than to be loved when you are a ruler.The book is well written and appears to be well researched. It is also a good read, though it is less exciting than “Fire and Fury” and less personal than “Unhinged.” If you follow the evening news on Trump on anything but Fox, you would probably already be fairly well aware of much of the continuing drama of the Trump administration. What “Fear” adds is a more detailed version of the events inside the White House. While this is by no means a Fox News type whitewash of President Trump, I found it to be a somewhat more sympathetic portrayal of President Trump than I had expected based on the initial quotes in the news from the early release copies of “Fear.”By the way, the book has a full color set of pictures in the middle of the book that identifies many of the major players in the book.I will not attempt to summarize the book. But I found the following items to be of interest:A very succinct description of the issues that led Donald Trump to win the presidency was from Steve Bannon:1 Stopping mass illegal immigration and limiting legal immigration.2 Bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA.3 Get out of the pointless foreign wars.4 Making the election about Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump.The infighting within the Trump White House is astonishing. Trump has no government experience which we all knew. The majority of his cabinet and upper administration are likewise novices to government and politics. Not surprisingly among a group of Alpha types, most of them came with their own agendas and priorities and were as Reince Priebus, Trumps first Chief of Staff expressed like bringing together a bunch of predators in zoo without walls or barriers. There was a lot of infighting as each tried to get their particular agenda implemented.President Trump’s Legal Council John Dowd (2017-March 2018) believes and behaved in his legal strategy that Candidate Donald Trump did not conspire with Russia to swing the election. He also seemed to think that Special Prosecutor Robert Muller had no evidence indicating implicating Donald Trump on these charges but that Trump’s inability to stick to the truth without making stuff up would wind up making Trump guilty of perjury if he were to attempt to answer questions under oath.I noted that Trump was described in many ways. For example he seems to genuinely want to fulfill the campaign promises he made to his base. It is admirable when a politician actually takes that seriously - But it is troubling when a President is feeding the divisions within America instead of trying to unify.Trump is ego driven - He feeds on the adoration of his base and Fox News. Criticism in the media by other news organizations hurts his ego and drives his anger. Trump seems to have anger control issues and can be easily distracted in meetings and interactions and his staff has trouble getting him to focus on priorities. Trump sees personal relationships between him and leaders of other countries as his strength instead of relying on his staff for complex issues beyond his experience.

Excellent writing style and many “what!?” and “that’s crazy!” moments. Disturbing insight into a dangerous, unqualified and narcissistic person and how he became (and why he failed as) POTUS.

Excelente para melhorar a compreensão da língua inglesa. Bem escrito, prendeu minha atenção do começo ao fim.

Bob Woodward siempre es una buena opción para leer, sin embargo, FEAR sobrepasa por mucho cualquier otro libro del autor. Su investigación nos delata todo lo que ha estado ocurriendo en la casa blanca por la llegada de Trump, y resuelve muchas preguntas que podamos hacernos sobre la administración.

Easy to read and well documented.Fascinating insight in the « working » of the White House under Trump . Also frightening to realize that so much ignorance, arrogance, bigotry exists . Not surprising that all the good people left or were pushed out ..

Ho acquistato il libro in lingua originale e lo sto leggendo lentamente.Devo dire che è un libro fantastico i cui contenuti sono un po’ inquietanti e fanno venire letteralmente i brividi al pensiero di chi controlla le sorti dell’intera umanità.