Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob WoodwardMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Bob Woodward is a reporter, and Fear reads very much like a very long newspaper story. Lots of quotes from individuals, paraphrasing where necessary, coming from "deep background interviews" or other published works. It's all in service of one thing, trying to make sense of the erratic first year of the Trump White House. (This is in contrast to Fire and Fury, the other major book thus far about the Trump White House, which I felt was much more of an entertainment work.)
There's not much in the way of consistent narrative in Fear, as it reports notable interactions between various actors in mostly chronological order. It jumps back and forth between issues as they were more or less important at the time. This can make it difficult to follow, but is necessary because Woodward is mostly aiming to describe President Trump's interactions with his staff and provide a glimpse into his state of mind, both which changed regularly as events progressed.
Largely this shows a negative picture of Trump, as a man who has little patience for the opinions of others, a very limited attention span, and a habitual liar. But it's not all negative. Woodward also shows the President's real sadness and anger over deaths in the Syrian civil war, for example, and how he did his best to console families of deceased service members. I was impressed with Woodward's work reporting the complexities of the President, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions.
For me, that conclusion is that the Trump White House that Woodward describes largely revolved around people trying to keep their leader from doing real harm to himself or the country. Trump would propose action, like doing a personal interview with Robert Mueller on the Russia investigation or withdrawing from the South Korea-US trade agreement or imposing steel tariffs. Then the staff would frantically try to delay or water down those actions until the President either lost interest (usually) or could be convinced to take another course (rarely). Sometimes the staff was successful, sometimes not.
The book also painted several key White House figures in a different light than I'd seen before. The one that stood out most in my mind was Rob Porter, who resigned in disgrace after being accused of domestic violence. But before that, Porter had been a very important influence on President Trump, often moderating some of the more extreme actions that the President wanted to take. Another is Gary Cohn, a former Wall Street executive who was instrumental in pushing through the Republican tax cuts. The extensive efforts that Cohn went through to fight against Trump's anti-free-trade actions (tariffs, withdrawal from free trade treaties) are described in detail in Fear. I wouldn't say I have a better view of either man, as I still think both did some incredibly harmful things, but at least it's a more complete view of how much worse things could have been without their efforts.
I can't exactly say that I enjoyed Fear, because it's not an easy or uplifting read. But I certainly feel better informed.
