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Rage

By: Bob Woodward
Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
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Publisher's Summary

An unprecedented and intimate tour de force of new reporting on the Trump presidency facing a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest, from Bob Woodward.

Woodward, the number one international best-selling 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 listeners 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 first-hand 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.'

©2020 Bob Woodward (P)2020 Simon & Schuster UK

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Fascinating

An insight into potential one of the most dangerous President’s we’ve ever had.
I don’t still understand how it’s possible that Donald Trump is the leader of the free world in someways it “ beggar’s belief”!

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It's good to hear impartiality

Surely after the publication / recording of this account, Americans could not elect such a shallow, self centred and unwise individual.

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Alarming portrait of world's most powerful man

Bob Woodward brings the same incisive thorough & scrupulous approach to this study of Donald Trump as he did to his character study of Hillary Clinton. Neither Clinton nor Trump are attractive people, both lie easily & often, both have employed military force disastrously & both love money almost as much as power.
The narration is smooth & clear and the voice is really pleasant. There are no theatrics in the narration or the text. Woodward's interviews with Trump, sometimes by phone, others in person, are lessons in polite but no nonsense questioning. There is no simpering, showing off or belligerence; Woodward is respectful & has done a heroic amount of research. The result is fascinating, shocking & surprising as Trump shows unexpected sides to his behaviour. One of the best audio books ever on political figures.

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Woodward Again Strikes a Chord

I have no doubt that the 45th President of the United States made writing this quite challenging at times for Woodward - the author seems to make repeated attempts to get Trump to realise the severity of the challenge he faces with the COVID-19 Pandemic and although some messages get through, Trump always defer to how he's the greatest this, and the best that. Fortunately for the listener, the book is shaped so despite what misgivings you may have towards 45, it keeps you intrigued for the whole story.

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Exhausting brilliant


Bob at the end of this book stated he felt weary about the state of the country and the impact of the virus on America. I feel personally weary having listened to this.
Woodward’s reporting on this book was just excellent, he was fair to trump multiple times in their interviews announcing where trump was right, but also giving him measured questions that could elevate the man and consciously bring him as a human empathetic and compassionate man and as a leader to the forth front, but alas Trump in his personal interviews with Woodward was just incapable of internal reflection and candidness about his real feeling about the suffering of so many.
This was one of the most frustrating books, I honestly felt like smacking my head against a wall with trumps nonsensical ramblings and zero sum thinking and because the interviews are mostly recorded it leaves little doubt that trump has the mentality of a 5 year old, incapable of taking personal responsibility, for understanding nuance on complex world issues he presumes are simple, his binary thinking and his victim mindset.
His language is at best third grade. I was kind of hoping with direct interviews much of his rhetoric and approach to language were an act but no he really is this narcissistic and also incompetent.
He truly believes he has done a great job, now at the time of this review over 200,000 Americans are dead!
The economy in shambles, tens of millions unemployed. And he uses just fear tactics without any real plan to salvage America. Trump clearly has no idea what he is doing, no plan, no ideology, no vision, on division.
Antifa today is the caravan of migrants in 2018. It’s all just none sense. And I wish the media would just stop covering every dumb thing he says on a mic. He is clearly playing them, and thrives on outraging the left, to steal pointless headlines.
Trump to be honest was unintelligent, nonsensical and kind of boring. Graham, kushner, Mattis, and Rex tillerson were actually far more interesting because they have dimensions, trump does not. And it’s from his own words you can make this statement.
This book should tick off liberals, frustrate and cause direct introspection for conservatives and redefine to swing voters what and who this man really is.
God help America honestly if this man wins again.
Great book, excellent reporting and Woodward has the patients of a saint.
I’ll add that it’s sad RBG’s wish won’t be honoured and that she didn’t get to see out the year.
As this book actually contains trump being interviews I’d say it’s an essential pickup, that and his nieces book if you want to try and understand the 45th POTUS.
Prompts to the narrator, not an easy task repeating trumps words.

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Disturbing

Everything you know about this Presidency is confined in horrifying detail. I couldn't stop listening despite the anxiety it was provoking.

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Scary. Well written, well read, I’ll have to listen again... to be sure.

Brilliant!
The issue of Trump’s behaviour is outrageous, the amazing acceptance of it by so many of the American people is beyond belief.
From my Australian point of view he is a train off the rails that hasn’t had the good sense to tip over. Just keeps on plowing along taking down every thing and everyone in it’s path.
Sadly, the rest of the world is in the Caboose.
Boris and Scomo are following and taking points.

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Great book that will be called upon for decades

This book is great for contextualising a tumultuous time in US history, with 17 direct interviews with the President and close sources from those who worked in the Whitehouse, it is a detailed account of who Trump was in 2018-19 and how things led into the COVID crisis, among other issues.

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Fantastic

Provides a vivid picture or the White House and a solid glimpse of Pres. Trump.

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Stunning and frightening

This work reveals as much about US culture as it does about the person who has come to represent it in these past few years.
Much has been lost from that culture. Trump did not take it away. He became the icon of its absence.

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