TIRED of WINNING: DONALD TRUMP and the END of the GRAND OLD PARTY (audiobook) by Jonathan Karl

 

Published in November of 2023 by Penguin Audio.
Read by the author, Jonathan Karl.
Duration: 8 hours, 32 minutes.
Unabridged.

ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl brings us his third book about Donald Trump as President and as former President.

His first book covered candidate Trump and the first 3 years of the Trump Administration. The second book covered the last year of the Trump Administration with a special focus on all of the "stop the steal" claims. It was called Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show. Too bad it was not in fact Trump's "final act." 

Karl has a long relationship with the former President. He interviewed 5 times before he even decided to officially run for President in the 2016 election. He's interviewed him multiple times since, including for all three of his books. Karl includes actual audio clips from those interviews (questions and answers) for the benefit of those that doubt.

If you think Donald Trump is awesome, this is not the book for you. I'm not going to go into the details because, at this point - after so many years of Trump's shenanigans, those details won't change any minds.

I thought this was an engrossing listen because I am very, very skeptical of anything that the 45th President is involved in. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  TIRED of WINNING: DONALD TRUMP and the END of the GRAND OLD PARTY by Jonathan Karl.

BETRAYAL: THE FINAL ACT of the TRUMP SHOW (audiobook) by Jonathan Karl

 

Published in November of 2021 by Penguin Audio.
Read by the author, Jonathan Karl.
Duration: 10 hours, 32 minutes.
Unabridged.

In 2020, ABC White House reporter Jonathan Karl wrote a book about his experiences covering Donald Trump's run for President in 2016 and the first three years of his Presidency. It is called Front Row at the Trump Show. Karl follows up with this book of the last year of the Trump Administration and the first few months of his post-Presidency. 

Karl meticulously names his sources and plays actual audio tracks as he tells this sordid story of misinformation, deceit, outright lies and a botched attack on the Capitol building in an attempt to thwart the results of an election.

If the previous paragraph upsets you and you think it is full of lies then you do not want to read this book unless you enjoy being upset. 

If that paragraph sounds about right to you, I highly recommend this book as a primer to what you are likely to hear from the January 6 Commission. I've found it to be enormously instructive. 

The audiobook was read by the author, Jonathan Karl. It includes multiple interviews with President Trump himself. His post-Presidency interview with Karl was so full of self-inflicted leaks that it makes me wonder about President Trump's competency. He should have known that he would come off poorly - Karl had already written an entire book about Trump's time as President and it was not complimentary. 

Karl points out that President Trump always ran with a thin group of advisors and by the time the 2020 election his A Team advisors and his B Team advisors and a number of his C Team advisors had already come and gone. Perhaps these people didn't advise him that Karl had already written a critical book. Perhaps President Trump just wanted the publicity. Perhaps you can't tell President Trump anything.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  BETRAYAL: THE FINAL ACT of the TRUMP SHOW by Jonathan Karl.

FRONT ROW at the TRUMP SHOW (audiobook) by Jonathan Karl

Published by Penguin Audio on March 31, 2020.
Read by the author, Jonathan Karl.
Duration: 10 hours, 16 minutes.
Unabridged.

Jonathan Karl has had a long relationship with Donald Trump. Karl is a reporter

Jonathan Karl and Donald Trump in 1994 and nowadays.

(The New Republic, The New York Post, CNN and ABC) and he first met Donald Trump in 1994. Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley had just gotten married and were staying in Trump Tower for their honeymoon. Karl convinced Trump to do an interview about why celebrities would want to stay in his building. Trump personally led Karl on a tour of the building.

Over the years, Karl interviewed Trump multiple times for multiple reasons. Because of this relationship, Karl was called on to interview Trump when he toyed with the idea of running for president before 2016 (5 times).

Karl moved on to be the White House correspondent for the Obama administration for ABC and stayed when Donald Trump was elected.

This book will not change a single mind about President Trump, for or against him so I am not going to even delve into his stories. I thought Karl made a series of fair points.  He was also critical of other administrations and their dealings with the press. But, he didn't go into detail on those because it is a book about the "Trump Show".

The book is very listenable. Karl reads his own audiobook and does a great job, which is to be expected considering what he does for a living.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FRONT ROW at the TRUMP SHOW by Jonathan Karl.