Philip Rucker's "I Alone Can Fix It": An Inside Look at Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Last Year in Office

Rufusfirefly: Got this on a Saturday and by Sunday night read all 500 plus pages. It was well written, moved fast and amazing at how incredibly incompetent he was… worse than I imagined! The Constitution was facing someone who cared none and understood even less , its purpose. Even worse we’re the enablers willing to commit treason as well. Thanks to those who still respect the oath of allegiance to the Constitution not to one man and the service they did going above and beyond guarding the Republic. Pray we never face that threat again from him or worse if there is such a person. Excellent read.

United States on Oct 02, 2023

Kindle Customer: I thought it was very informative and frightening that Trump was so narcissistic and really wasn't bother governing the country over his own self preservation.
Enjoyed immensely.

United Kingdom on Jun 25, 2023

Kelley Ridings: Leonnig’s and Rucker’s Alone Can Fix It is a brilliant continuation of their equally stunning tome, A Very Stable Genius. This book focuses on 2020, the Trump administration’s re-election and pandemic year. The inside-politics format perfectly reveals the high drama of this presidency with many head-shaking moments of stunning import.

One realizes even more that Trump’s own flaws doomed his presidency. He didn’t want to be viewed as weak — confusing weakness with compassion though in the depths of the losses of the pandemic. He has to be the smartest person in the room at all times, which he demonstrated again and again in his chaotic and mercurial administration. He couldn’t accept a key feature of politics — you win some and you lose some. In addition to his considerable flaws, as he drove away more reasonable advisors, he was further ill-served by many who stepped in to fill the power vacuum — self-serving hangers on who fed him bad advice, crackpot theories, and hair-brained schemes. Because he only wanted to have yes-people round him, through his advisor and the news, he psychologically couldn’t accept anything that ran counter to his world view....

United States on Jul 23, 2022

William T: This book is authored by two brilliant Washington Post reporters, Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker, who I truly suspect must have polished and sharpened their word craft in their years as coming up writers reading the best of Stephen King’s lithe horrors! So smooth and dark a picture of Trump’s final Whitehouse year they paint! A real life horror that I couldn’t be away from longer than overnight.
They ferreted out some of the meanest details of Trump’s dire challenge to American life from the evil doer himself, who sat for more than two hours with them ladling out his evil concoctions with not the slightest conscience or care.
I savour good writing, having worked as a journalist myself. The best writing is better than sex!
And this lengthy book - 578 pages - is like getting it on with the Devil.
New Trump books come rolling off the presses practically daily, so we all know about the miscreant’s foul character, his profound narcissism, his utter disrespect for others, and yadda yadda yadda. It’s become almost tedious to hear about his tempestuous Whitehouse, his revenge rages, the bottomless pool of hate and fear that characterize Trump. It’s sick...

Canada on Feb 02, 2022

P-A: The authors obviously have very good contacts in both the Democratic Party and the GOP. They describe at an astounding level of detail how Trump acted and reacted to Covid and how the campaigns were run. Combing reading this book with “Lucky” gives a complete - and exhausting - insight to current US politics.

The authors often writes as if they were inside the head of key staffers, e.g. the campaign managers. I find it unlikely that Stepien has been quite as forthcoming with his thoughts on how the election would play out as the book gives you reason to believe. But the authors claim to have interviewed so many people and thus have a basis for their writing.

No matter what the level of accuracy is, it makes for highly entertaining reading even if the end result is known.

United Kingdom on Jan 08, 2022

Cameron LallyCameron Lally: Riveting read on Donald Trump's final year in office, and probably his most consequential. This book shows just how much can happen in 12 months.
For Trump, 2020 started off well. He had a major success in Qasem Soleimani, survived his first impeachment trial, and was all set to start his campaign for re-election. Then along came COVID-19, the biggest public health crisis in our lifetime. From 'refusing to mask up' to 'rebelling against the experts,' the book portrays Trump as someone who didnt take the crisis seriously, and as unable to unite Americans during the BLM protests in the summer.
When it came to Trumps loss in the 2020 election to Joe Biden, it was interesting to read what was going on behind the scenes, particularly the various lawsuits filed in several states, and the reporting about the events on January 6 were very detailed and researched.
Someone who shines in this book is General Mark Milley. The most insightful piece of information were the four tasks he set for himself after the Lafayette Square incident, summarising them as a mission to ensure the USA has a free and fair election with no military involvement. It's safe to say he achieved his goals.

United Kingdom on Nov 22, 2021

Eljo: If you like the first book - A Very Stable Genius - you'll certainly like this one. It begins pretty much at the point the first book left off, concentrating on the pandemic, the election and, of course the time between the election and the inauguration. Having followed these events fairly closely as they happened, it was fascinating to read about what was going on out of sight of public scrutiny (in conjunction with what we were seeing and hearing at the time). I found the retelling of the events of 6th January particularly well done - and although I reached this rather late at night, couldn't put it down until events were back under some control.
There was one small error - the authors referred to Oxford Astra-Zeneca as a 'British Company'. As I understand it, this vaccine was developed through a collaboration between scientists at Oxford University and the Swedish drug company Astra-Zeneca. Given the recounting of one of Trump's complaints about drug company profits from Covid-19 vaccines, it might have been nice to mention that AZ are selling theirs at cost.
Over their two books, these reporters have perhaps produced the best recounting of the reign of Trump to be...

United Kingdom on Jul 22, 2021

Elisa 20: Yes, it's well written and well researched. You'd expect that from these two respected Washington Post reporters. It's hard to organize material like this--over 140 interviews, so many quotes and events. They do a great job of it, focusing on Trump's "catastrophic" last year--his failures with covid, George Floyd protests and his desire for a military response (welcome push back to this from Milley). Barr gets some welcome push back from Geoffrey Berman before Berman is fired. Berman's effort was important.

These are the things you like to read--people standing up for what's right, even when it means taking on the rude, often profane and angry President. It's the same way when they get to the insurrection--we see some advisors who are normally so slavish (Barr, Pence, e.g.) standing up for the country. This is an important historical document as well as excellent journalism. Rucker and Leonnig show us the events and recreate many conversations (obviously checking with both sides as they include the denials that such conversation ever took place and leave it for us to decide whom to believe).

It's a long book, and very impressive how they weave so many people and...

United States on Jul 20, 2021