Rage
Bob Woodward's new book, Rage, is an unprecedented and intimate tour de force of new reporting on the Trump presidency facing a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest. Woodward, the #1 international bestselling author of Fear: Trump in the White House, has uncovered the precise moment the president was warned that the Covid-19 epidemic would be the biggest national security threat to his presidency. In dramatic detail, Woodward takes readers into the Oval Office as Trump's head pops up when he is told in January 2020 that the pandemic could reach the scale of the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed 675,000 Americans. In 17 on-the-record interviews with Woodward over seven volatile months--an utterly vivid window into Trump's mind--the president provides a self-portrait that is part denial and part combative interchange mixed with surprising moments of doubt as he glimpses the perils in the presidency and what he calls the "dynamite behind every door." At key decision points, Rage shows how Trump's responses to the crises of 2020 were rooted in the instincts, habits and style he developed during his first three years as president. Revisiting the earliest days of the Trump presidency, Rage reveals how Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats struggled to keep the country safe as the president dismantled any semblance of collegial national security decision making. Rage draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand witnesses as well as participants' notes, emails, diaries, calendars and confidential documents. Woodward obtained 25 never-seen personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who describes the bond between the two leaders as out of a "fantasy film." Trump insists to Woodward he will triumph over Covid-19 and the economic calamity. "Don't worry about it, Bob. Okay?" Trump told the author in July. "Don't worry about it. We'll get to do another book. You'll find I was right."
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Community Reviews
It's not at all about rage. It's surprisingly interesting given that I've been very carefully paying attention for 4 years and therefore didn't expect there to be anything new here. I mean a lot of it is things we know about Trump but it's a bit a different view with Woodward asking him things over and over in hopes of getting answers, and it's more organized and thorough than Woodward's Fear. He's clearly trying to be fair to Trump and interviewed people who know him well and both dislike or like him. In particular, I was engaged - if not completely convinced- by the concept that China possibly failed to contain the virus to just China on purpose for economic or political reasons (given that shutting off travel from the China end was more straightforward than all countries shutting down all travel). Worth reading, and better than Woodward's "Fear." Interestingly, Woodward clearly read "The Room Where It Happened" and only found one sentence of value in that entire book so it's probably skippable.
Update: I just heard some of the Woodward recordings and now I know why the book is called Rage. It's not what is written in the book it's probably the sense Woodward got that Trump is enraged when answering Woodward's questions. But this might possibly be because Trump interrupts constantly, defensively, and speaks condescendingly to Woodward. Or it could be Woodward's sense that Trump hates Democrats collectively and individually.
Update: I just heard some of the Woodward recordings and now I know why the book is called Rage. It's not what is written in the book it's probably the sense Woodward got that Trump is enraged when answering Woodward's questions. But this might possibly be because Trump interrupts constantly, defensively, and speaks condescendingly to Woodward. Or it could be Woodward's sense that Trump hates Democrats collectively and individually.
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