Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History

Katy Tur, a NBC News correspondent, has a much stronger constitution than I have and a much better stomach. If I had to spend 500 days, with Donald J. Trump, I would have contemplated ending my life.
Tur was handed this assignment in 2015 but never thought Trump would survive the duration but she slowly became aware of his rising, cult-like popularity and soon had the unsettling feeling he was going to win it all.
This is not an easy read, as Tur describes all the distasteful horrors that unfolded during these baffling and horrifying months, but it is a highly entertaining narrative and I have an immense appreciation of Tur's tenacity, sense of humor and clever insight.

It possibly wasn’t my smartest decision ever to read Unbelievable on the eve of the U.S. elections, or at the hairdresser but it felt right. Reading this as the world watched and waited (and waited) for the outcome of the election gave me more insight into the U.S. system and Trump and his supporters.

Katy Tur joined the Trump 2016 campaign from its earliest beginnings and followed it through to that election. Her story describes what it’s like to be on the road for a year and half (spoiler: you will get sick of takeaway, hotels and airports). It also describes how a small following became huge, with rallies on the tarmac at airports, fancy dinners for high spending donors and a lot of waiting, followed by a lot of rushing around. show more Trump called Katy out specifically a number of times during the campaign (at one point the Secret Service escorted her out at the end of an event), sometimes with a compliment but usually not. The book gets quite personal at times, as Katy finds it difficult in comparison with what she’s given up to follow Trump around the country. It also goes into her background, which was useful for me because this Aussie doesn’t have access to NBC.

The book is light hearted in tone generally and very easy to read. You don’t need to be an expert in U.S. politics or know every player (although some names I know from the four years that followed). The story starts on election night and then goes back to the initial campaign. As the campaign heats up, the election day sections go on to that moment where people realised Trump was a genuine contender against Clinton. It was interesting to look back in retrospect to see how it all happened. It was also interesting from an Australian point of view for several reasons. One, Tur mentions that she doesn’t vote because she’s too close to the action. I found that a bit weird – wouldn’t reporters be more informed, both on and off the record? Two, rallies of thousands supporting Trump almost manically with MAGA hats and signs is quite foreign to us. We support our footy teams like that, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find many people supporting politics with the same fervour. Three – the electoral college thing. I think I finally understand how it works and why it came into existence, but…is it still relevant?

I thought I knew all the talking points of Trump’s 2016 campaign, but I’d clearly blanked some of this out. There were more than a few ‘what the’ moments as Katy recounted them. It’s still easy to read while your jaw is dropping and I zoomed through it. A great read about the peculiarities of politics.

Now we just need the 2020 campaign books!

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The author, a journalist for NBC and MSNBC, details the year plus (more than 500 days) she spent on the campaign trail following Trump around. She details all the times someone (on his side or his opponent's) swore it was over, he was dead as a serious candidate, this just did it...whatever this was. It might be a revelation about his business or a tape about grabbing women by the pussy...none of it mattered. None of it hurt him. The author shows an enormous amount of insight, not going into the long detailed explanations that pundits prefer, trying to swerve down some rabbit hole of relative normality that allows them to analyze the campaign, the administration, and the aftermath. She sees bullshit for what it is, and calls it what it show more is. She talks with the voters, not the ones in coffee shops at a brief stopover in the heartland during a flyover, but ones attending the rallies, ones sending her death threats or (literally) spitting in her face. She does perhaps give a bit too much credit to them being 'frustrated' without explaining what they are 'frustrated' about, but other than that, an excellent recap. show less

Katy Tur is at heart a rough and tumble style journalist who has successfully adapted to a professional on-screen presence with grace and wit. There were laugh-out-loud anecdotes about the campaign trail and wise observations about the process and the candidate. There were astonishing reports of risk to the journalists from the rally crowds. Tur mixed a personal memoir with the unusual experience of following Trump on the campaign trail. At first I found the back and forth timeline a bit questionable, but one I adjusted, I realized the wisdom of formatting the story in this way. Her writing is clear, precise, inviting and funny as needed. I didn’t think I wanted to revisit 2016 because we watched it all so closely on TV, but this was show more a suitable epilogue to that experience. I will continue to follow her career and am grateful she took the time to record this portion of her reporting life. show less

I've been around for a long time and I've seen a lot of presidential campaigns, but I don't think I've ever seen anything as insane and disheartening as Donald Trump's campaign to become President of the United States and his subsequent victory. With that in mind, I decided to let Katy Tur immerse me in the whys and wherefores of his campaign in hope of understanding how a reality TV star with no political experience at all could bamboozle enough people into voting for him that he managed to beat out many more competent politicians.

Tur covered Trump's campaign from the beginning, watching not just the candidate but the crowds that came to hear him speak, and she came to believe first, that he could win and then that he would win. She's show more still not convinced that he wanted the job at all, but what she saw by watching his fans was that they saw a man who was "one of them," a man who famously said of the job after a few months in office that he had no idea it was that hard to be President.

She also saw him pander to a huge number of disaffected people who were looking for someone to blame for the fact that their lives weren't what they'd been promised. They needed someone to blame for crime, for disappearing jobs, lack of access to health care, and even for their failing relationships. And Trump delivered. Blame the brown people, blame women, blame politicians especially Obama, blame judges, and especially blame The Media. Tur got a lot of that during the campaign. Trump singled her out, and as a result she was shouted at, sent death threats, and even spit on. To her credit she doesn't tar all Trump supporters with that particular brush, but she does recognize that the seething violence under the surface of his rallies is a direct result of his choices.

Tur is made of tougher stuff than I am. When she describes Trump kissing her cheek, she is understandably worried about how her bosses will react. My response was to cringe at the thought of those lips. She copes with a nearly endless string of lies by saving verbatim files of everything he said in public to herself so she could fact check them. My response was to mutter "Shut up, shut up shut up!" from between clenched teeth every time she quoted another lie. Tur is a born news-person, I'm simply a citizen. But we both live a post-Trump world, so her experiences, as horrifying as I found many of them, are like maps through the maze of the Crazy.

Thank God for Katy Tur and others like her. show less

Katy Tur is an entertaining guide through the 2016 US Presidential election, with a front seat and often (unwanted) starring role in Trump's campaign.

The book really brought home how much Trump and the campaign weaponised misogyny and sexism, with Tur directly in the firing line on several occasions. Also, being a journalist in the 2010's seems like a depressingly thankless task - literally never being able to switch off.

Not sure that the non-linear structure worked as well as a more chronological narrative but this will never stop being a great (albeit depressing) story, no matter how many times it's told.

Katy Tur’s thoroughly enjoyable account of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential run is a great read for those interested in campaign journalism. As a reporter for MSNBC, Tur covered Trump’s campaign for over a year, and her account is divided between her constant time on the road, and watching events unfold on election day. While much has been written about Trump, Tur chronicles the campaign’s controversies while also providing insight into her emotions, ambitions, and exhaustion. The day-in-the-life account of a journalist on the campaign trail is fascinating, and Tur’s writing is quick and easy. Tur doesn’t criticize the twenty-four news cycle as much as document the negative effects the demand for news has on her life. The show more struggle of ambition, and the idea of making it, made for a interesting narrative aside from the familiar campaign details. Understandably, Tur doesn’t fire shots or give into gossip, this isn’t a political tell-all. Overall, she plays it pretty straight, it’s her experience, and this is a great addition for those who enjoy political or journalistic memoirs. show less