In his 27 years at Goldman, Cohn had made billions for his clients and hundreds of millions for himself. He had granted himself walk in privileges to Trump's Oval Office, and the president had accepted that arrangement. On the desk was a one page draft letter from the president addressed to the president of South Korea, terminating the United States-Korea Free Trade agreement, known as KORUS. Cohn was appalled. For months Trump had threatened to withdraw from the agreement, one of the foundations of an economic relationship, a military and, most important, top secret intelligence operations and capabilities. Cohn removed the letter draft from the Resolute Desk. " I stole it off his desk," he later told an associate. "I wouldn't let him see it. He's never going to see that document. Got to protect the country. "

Because so much of the dialogue in “Fear: Trump in the White House” is between Trump’s generals and staffers, his lawyers and a few cabinet members, a portrait of the real Donald Trump kind of creeps out of the pages of this book quietly.

Donald Trump believes that fear instills if not loyalty at least obedience in his White House and beyond, and that is what this book is all about: what Donald Trump’s mantra means to governing America at home, and how it sets the stage for relations with its allies and enemies.

Donald Trump wants you to be afraid of him. And many of us are, but not for the reasons that would necessarily serve his ends.

Much of the dialogue appears without reflection or analysis. We kind of get what the antagonists feel, but not too much of what the author feels or how the author compares what he is hearing to what he has written about at length before: what other presidents felt, or what other presidents did that actually worked.

In the short time frame of the book we never get to find out if things Trump did actually worked except that almost everything he says creates fierce, constant criticism and contempt.

Woodward starts with a Donald Trump premise and then rolls it out against the advice of his staff and the wider world. For example, why should America bother subsiding trade deficits with South Korea and paying billions for a military presence in that country if America gets nothing in return and the North Koreans continue unabated to build their nuclear offensive capabilities?

Why should America stay in Afghanistan at all when it cost America close to a trillion dollars to find out it is incapable of controlling the political landscape there or recouping its expense by harvesting Afganistan’s supposed mineral wealth?

Trump feels he never gets a straight answer from his advisors, but the answer is pretty elementary: nuclear weapons are no laughing matter for those who have them and those who strive to acquire them. They give you leverage, a concept Trump is certainly well aware of. And the more nations who have them, the weaker everybody is to control them.

That is why America’s military is so outsized in relation to the immediate threats that face it. It’s because neither America nor anybody else wants to see what happens when that button gets pushed again.

That’s also why the outsized influence of Steve Bannon on Donald Trump is so worrisome. Build walls, smash global trade, ignore climate change.

These are really dumb ideas.

For all that ails American capitalists and American democratic institutions; for the inequities between who creates American wealth and who gets to keep it, for all those who believe in individual sovereignty (read: abortion rights) and those who want to enforce supposed Christian standards of behaviour by fiat; for those who believe that automatic weapons have no place in the polity; for those who believe America is wealthy enough to provide basic health care insurance; for all those who despise the influence of libertarians in public debate, this story is only about one man and his loyalties.

In the 2018 midterm elections, Trump tried to divert attention away from the unpopular Republican stand against pre-existing conditions in the Affordable Care Act. He called out troupes to defend the southern border against aliens creeping into America.

During this whole episode, one heard so little in the media about why these people were so desperate to risk incarceration at the US border, or risk having their children taken from them. There was no discussion about the problems failed states to the south face or what their neighbours are trying to do to correct the violence and corruption at home.

It is not that different from what is causing Europe palpitations over the tidal wave of migrants on their borders.

Also troubling about this book is the way it satirizes the so-called adults in the room. If Trump doesn’t get the answers he wants from his advisors, there’s a suggestion that there’s something wrong with the advisors. Indeed there is. The retired generals and Wall Street types around him supposedly understand the right thing to do, but Woodward makes them out to be somewhat twisted individuals as well — which they probably are. But the inference is that Trump is actually right.

Nobody wants to hear that. ( )

Loses rigor and interest in the final chapters, from reporting to opinion—I go to the newspaper for current events.

That said, warning signs are made plain, though inefficiently at times.. On 9/11 the message board over the interstate leading to the beltway from Maryland points west read something like “Avoid Washington. Big Trouble.” Clearly, MDOT should have left that sign up. ( )

I expected better prose from Woodward. The book reads like a mediocre novel, and it would be such if the stories in it were not believable. It probably could have used half the words. ( )

I only knew of Bob Woodward from Watergate, so I was expecting a more serious book.

This is basically just gossip with zero analysis, but it's well-sourced gossip so it is compelling. Woodward's attempt to preserve the exact words of the speakers adds some extra colour, and is the most interesting aspect of the book. ( )