Jonathan Karl

Jonathan Karl is the face you see reporting nightly from the White House. An outstanding reporter, he has covered Trump for over 25 years. From his days as a glory-seeking real estate investor to the Presidency.
Karl really fleshes out the behind-the-scenes stories that we view every night on the news. Not limited to a short 30-60 second sound bite, he can take the time to tell the whole story. And what a pile of stories he has! If anything, it leaves you with the impression that things in show more the White House are even more chaotic than we thought. It really is an office run by one person, and that one person is in so far over his head that it's scary. So convinced of his own greatness, he's unwilling to take the advice of anyone, and makes decisions based only on how it will play in the polls. We are in deep trouble!
Honestly, I do not know how the author (and other reporters) can keep a straight face when asking Trump questions. Anytime he's talking, they know that he is lying. But, they keep asking. I would not want to play cards with Karl, his poker face would allow him to win everytime!
(Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book). show less

His writing is clear and concise, and the reports are alarming. “Our democracy – the one we have been taught is the greatest system of government in the history of the world – survived his downfall. But his betrayal showed just how vulnerable our democratic system is.” Watching daily news reports and the January 6 committee hearings has given me a lot of information to process. However, this book goes deep into explaining more details of how this happened and who was involved.

In show more 2016, he wrote how Trump could win by dividing the country and removing anyone in the administration that wasn’t loyal. While I knew that he hired John McEntee, a 29-year-old inexperienced “body guy” to be the director of the White House Personnel Office, I was shocked at the tactics taken to remove experienced high-level administrators or anyone that wasn’t 100 percent with Trump. It made me wonder how people were able to work in an environment of questionable trust levels, anger and fear.

Karl explained the background of Trump’s dishonesty with the pandemic which we all know that resulted in thousands of Americans being infected and dying. This book brings us back to remembering the news reports with Trump at the podium while the experts were mostly on the sidelines. Most people in the White House did not wear masks when the pandemic started which made it a dangerous place to work.

Other parts of the book gives the reader more details about other administrative actions. Protests across the country resulted resulting from George Floyd’s death. Trump said, “when looting starts, the shooting starts.” Also, Trump accused news reporter, Joe Scarborough, of murdering a woman 19 years ago. And then the book follows Trump’s downfall when he made accusations of voter fraud. “We now live in a nation where a large part of the population does not trust our elections. There are many reasons for this, but none greater than Donald Trump and the lies he told about the 2020 election.” Trump also influenced the Supreme Court with conservative judges making it a political team of decision makers.

There’s more in the book and it’s a must read for everyone on both sides of the aisle. As it’s been said so many times: “you can’t make this up.” show less

Karl writes in such a readable fashion and although I felt as though I knew most of what he was going to be describing, he added lots of details to the picture of what anyone paying attention was observing. The problem is that the people who should be reading this book....with not touch it, or believe it if they DID start to read it and that's where we are in this country. Yes, it should be required reading for all of the Republican congressional people. Why do people think this person who show more is no longer in office should ever have been President or should possibly have the chance of becoming President again??? There is no end to the descriptive words that can be applied to Trump in an effort to explain him....allllll negative. Great book! show less

Karl seems to be trying hard to show a fairish, balanced view of Trump, such as highlighting trivial incidents like Trump being right in an exchange about where Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address (not on a jostling train ride) and having an accurate and withering remark about Jeb Bush when asked about his chances against Hillary... Such highlights service to only stress the chaos and crazy of "the Trump Show". This book goes from campaign to Presidency and goes rather deep into the press show more briefing animosity with Acosta, etc.; how it happened that asking the Trump Press Secretary to swear to honesty; and Trump's narcissistic love for attention from the media he reviles. show less