If you pick up this book expecting a tale of lying, grifting and bullying, you won’t be disappointed. What you’ll find here is the evidence. If you don’t believe that’s what Donald Trump is about, you probably aren’t going to be reading this anyway.

Two veteran White House correspondents have put together a full accounting of about a year and a half of Trump’s second term, beginning with the aftermath of the 2024 election. If you follow domestic political news you’ll be familiar with this stuff, Epstein, Iran, crypto, deportations. What Haberman and Swan try to do is provide a look from the inside out.

Most of this doesn’t surprise me, but I still marveled at how shallow the man is. Right from the start, when Trump was selecting his Cabinet, the room was lined with monitors because a key factor in making these choices was how they looked on TV.  During one meeting when a military officer was providing an analysis of the war in the Ukraine, Trump interrupted to comment, “I’m not a big fan of Ukraine, except their women. They keep winning Miss Universe.” That drew suppressed laughs from Vance and Hegseth.  During a guided tour of the African-American History Museum, when shown an exhibit about Dutch involvement in the slave trade, Trump commented,  “You know, they love me in the Netherlands.” And after his widely publicized contentious meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky, he pronounced it “better than The Apprentice.”

He’s also pretty thin-skinned. He ordered the firing of the director of the National Portrait Gallery because he didn’t like a photo of him that was displayed there.

The authors comment “Donald Trump had long since demonstrated he could adore himself far more, and in greater detail, than anyone else might.” Don’t think anyone could dispute that.

One thing that I found truly shocking was Trump praising the way China dealt with protestors in Tiananmen Square. (If you’re not familiar with this, they slaughtered them.) Says Trump, “they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.” This was presented within the context of discussions about sending troops into Democrat-led cities.

The supporting actors in this tale could well be the multiple choice answers to the question “Who’s the worst human being on the planet?” Is it a. Stephen Miller? b. Ilon Musk?  Or c. Roger Stone? I’d go with d. All of the above.

It is surprising that the authors have so much inside information about who said what in so many of the most important closed meetings at both Mar-a-Lago and the White House. This is an administration obsessed with stopping leakers and surrounding themselves with only avowed loyalists. Obviously some of these supposed loyalists are working more than one agenda.

News stories about the publication of this book reported on the chapters about the discomfort within the executive group about the potential release of the so-called Epstein files. Following one of those meetings, the authors say, “One of the officials would later describe it as a ‘surreal’ experience to be discussing Donald Trump and abused nipples in the White House situation room.” Yes, that’s the same room used by Kennedy during the Cuban missile crises, the room where Obama and his advisors watched the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. These days it’s the setting for discussing accusations of sexual abuse by Trump. After reading this I’m pretty sure we’re never going to see more of what’s in those files.

All and all this is pretty solid journalism. Woodward and Bernstein I suspect would approve. And, fittingly, it comes packaged in a shiny gold jacket.