The best books on the first Trump presidency

Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth—The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention by Wayne Barrett

Originally published in 1991, shortly after the release of Donald J. Trump's own ghostwritten book Trump: The Art of the Deal, Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett's study of the real estate mogul focuses on how he made Trump Tower happen, which was at the time Trump's crowning achievement. Barrett shows Trump operating in a domain he knows well—Manhattan real estate—employing every available tactic to get the deal done. Barrett digs into Trump's biography to paint a portrait of the mogul at the peak of his powers, just before his run of bankruptcies in the 1990s—and more than a decade before his comeback via The Apprentice TV series.

Long regarded as the definitive account of Trump's real estate dealings in Manhattan, the book was updated and re-released in 2016, following Trump's entry into the presidential race. Wayne Barrett died at age 71 on January 19, 2017, the day before Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States of America.

All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way by Fred C. Trump III

Fred Trump Jr., Donald's brother, didn't take up the family real estate business, opting instead to work as an airline pilot: this earned him the scorn of the family, which was transferred to his children Mary and Fred III when he died in 1981 at the age of 42. Despite Fred Trump Sr.'s establishment of a foundation to pay for the medical expenses of every member of the Trump family, the surviving elder Trumps, led by heir Donald, sought to remove Mary and Fred III as beneficiaries—even when the latter's youngest child was born with a condition requiring lifelong medical care. Authored by Donald Trump's nephew, Fred C. Trump III, this is the story of the black sheep of the Trump family and his legacy.

The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021 by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser

Journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser team up to present an exhaustive account of the Trump presidency through interviews with foreign officials, legislators, and even the Trump family. Through these accounts they argue that rather than following whimsy and impulse, President Trump was learning day by day how to emulate the foreign dictators he most admired. Meanwhile, those around him drew and redrew their moral boundaries while working to limit the harm caused by a man they considered unfit for office.

There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century by Fiona Hill

In 2017, Fiona Hill was appointed deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on President Trump's National Security Council staff, a position she held until mid-2019. In November of that year she testified before a congressional committee during the first impeachment. As an English coal miner's daughter and scholar of contemporary Russia, Hill knows first-hand the danger and political force that can be exerted by forgotten and desperate people. In this book she warns of how a widening economic gap threatens to transform American society into something more like Russia's kleptocratic oligarchy.

The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid by Lawrence Wright

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lawrence Wright tells the story of COVID-19 in America, covering the early days of the CDC’s troubled test kit development, as well as the researchers whose foundational work allowed for the rapid development of vaccines. This is a broad view of the pandemic that includes the perspectives of scientists and healthcare professionals as well as small business operators and financial prognosticators. Wright shows the impact of the White House’s action and inaction throughout this historic year.

“Frankly, We Did Win This Election”: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost by Michael C. Bender

Wall Street Journal reporter Michael C. Bender covers the period spanning Trump’s two impeachments, which includes the 2020 election that resulted in Trump’s loss and the ensuing fight to overturn the results. Bender combines interviews campaign advisors and senior administration officials with memos and emails from the campaign to illustrate how the president and is campaign staff were thinking about the electorate and their competition. And Bender connects the dots from key campaign messaging to the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Find Me the Votes: A Hard-Charging Georgia Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal an American Election by Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman

On January 2, 2021, Trump instructed Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who had publicly attested to the integrity of Georgia's electoral process which indicated that Democrat Joe Biden had won the state in the 2020 presidential election, to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.” In August of 2023 a grand jury indicted former president Donald J. Trump (and others) for leading a “criminal racketeering enterprise” with the intention of altering the outcome of the 2020 election.

Written by a pair of investigative journalists—each with years of experience in investigating and writing critically on presidents from both parties—this book provides crucial background on how Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis assembled the case, as well as what exactly was going on inside the Trump camp after the election was lost.

The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet

Reporter Jeff Sharlet attempts to untangle the contradictions of contemporary America, in which religious leaders preach materialism and prepare for armed conflict, political movements coalesce not around shared policy interests but to persecute out-groups, and patriotic martyrs are made from participants in an insurrection. For Sharlet, "fascism" isn't the dirty word that most mainstream media outlets treat it as, but rather an accurate label for a political movement with deep American roots.

The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020 by Jonathan Lemire

As White House Bureau Chief of the online magazine Politico, Jonathan Lemire has overseen investigations into political figures on both sides of the aisle. Here he analyzes the former president's history of sowing seeds of doubt in the electoral process, documenting how he spoke openly of his intent to disregard election results in speeches given at rallies in 2016 as he campaigned against Hillary Clinton, apparently laying the groundwork for the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Lemire outlines how lying—and responding to lies—has become a central strategic factor in American politics.

Holding the Line: Inside the Nation's Preeminent US Attorney's Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department by Geoffrey Berman

Geoffrey Berman was honored when in 2018 he was appointed by President Trump to the office US Attorney for the Southern District, a leadership role overseeing federal cases of the highest profile. But he soon learned that the famed independence of this institution was going to be challenged constantly by a White House seeking to prosecute political foes on thin pretenses. At the same time, Berman was being pressured to drop substantial cases that challenged the president or his allies. While Berman held the proverbial line, even butting heads with the US Attorney General, this book can be taken as an informed guess at what the Department of Justice under a second Trump term might bring.

How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Fascism by Ece Temelkuran

In this brief book, award-winning journalist Ece Temelkuran identifies how democracies turn anti-democratic through a series of steps, which can be observed playing out in Eastern Europe, South America, and arguably the United States as well.