Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Another damning portrait of a disastrous administration. “I am your retribution,” Trump promised his followers in a recent speech, since elaborated on with threats to root out “junkies, Marxists, thugs, radicals, and dangerous refugees that no other country wants.” As ABC News chief Washington correspondent Karl writes, none other than Steve Bannon himself pointed out to him that retribution was a code word employed by Confederate agents in a plot to assassinate Lincoln. Trump may be undisciplined and often unhinged, but he tells you who he is and what he means: The promised concentration camps for undocumented immigrants are likely not metaphors. After the 2020 election, Karl reveals, an irate, ego-deflated Trump threatened to leave the GOP and form his own party. He was dissuaded from doing so not by RNC chair Ronna McDaniel’s pleas for party loyalty, but instead by her threat of withdrawing millions of dollars in funding from him. Karl rightfully asks, Why not let the “wounded, vindictive, and angry former president” go? After all, as many GOP insiders have said behind closed doors, Trump is a loser. With him, the GOP has lost two midterms and a presidential election, and it’s demonstrable that non-Trump GOP candidates won in 2022 while pro-Trumpers lost. Still, Karl notes, Trump has a stranglehold on the GOP, so much so that “there may be no quicker way to lose a 2024 Republican presidential primary than to admit you’d consider trying to oust Donald Trump from office.” Just ask Liz Cheney. Other intriguing nuggets from this news-packed and newsworthy book: Trump fell full tilt under the sway of a QAnon theory that he’d be reinstated as president by a court decision, and, “more detached from reality than ever,” he now views the Jan. 6 rioters as heroes. Excellent reporting and assured writing—an ominous warning. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.