You may think you already know everything about Donald Trump, or at least everything you can bear to know. So did I. Until I read this absorbing, energetic chronicle of Trump’s first year of his second term. A best seller within days of publication and destined to be a classic in the anthology of American presidential chronicles and biography. By Maggie Haberman, who has covered Trump since his early days as a gauche New York real estate wannabe mogul, and Jonathan Swan, who began his career at the Sydney Morning Herald.

The book draws on tireless reporting. They penetrate Trump’s inner sanctum, and offer behind the scenes, rich details from dinners at Mar-a-Lago to secure meetings in the White House Situation Room, where Netanyahu persuaded Trump to go to war with Iran – a plan the Secretary of State called ‘bullshit’ and the CIA director ‘farcical.’ (Talk about great sources!). For Trump, humiliation was as much a part of his political strategy as ‘brazenly lying,’ and never admitting to making a mistake. He could even be charming – to Biden, for a moment. He delighted in recounting tales about the tech titans, such as Zuckerberg and Bezos, ‘grovelling’ and ‘kissing my ass.’

In an interview with the authors, Trump says he’s more powerful than Alexander the Great, the Caesar’s, and William the Conqueror – because they didn’t have planes.

Spoiler: It’s worse than that – more chaotic, less disciplined; less moral, more vindictive; more whimsical than thought out.  Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth makes ’snuff films;’ cabinet secretaries – supposedly adult men – hurl expletives at each other discussing tariff policy; he doesn’t like Ukraine “except for their women.”

A compelling read if you want to understand how a man who puts himself in the pantheon with Attila the Hun, Hitler, Stalin and Mao, governs as the 47th president of the United States.

— Ray

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