2024 How Trump retook the White House and the Democrats lost America

Josh Dawsey

Book - 2025

"The definitive, inside story of the most tumultuous and consequential presidential campaign in our history "The whole world was against me, and I won," said Donald Trump in an exclusive interview, ten days before his second inauguration. Nearly four years after Trump's first turbulent presidency concluded in a violent attempt to overturn the election, he made a political comeback on a scale that stunned the nation. How did the first U.S. president to become a convicted felon regain control of the White House? And at what cost? In 2024, award-winning reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf bring us the definitive and explosive account of how Trump and his advisers overcame a dozen primary challengers, four... indictments, two assassination attempts, and his own past mistakes to defeat the Democrats, and pave the way for a second term that would be far more aggressive and ruthless than the first. Drawing on extraordinary access to the Trump, Biden, and Harris teams, 2024 takes readers beyond the speeches, rallies, and debates to reveal the innermost workings of the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns. Beginning in August 2022 with the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents, and Trump's subsequent decision to run once again for president, Dawsey, Pager, and Arnsdorf chart how Trump stifled the rise of Republican opponents, including Ron DeSantis, and how his campaign, led by Susie Wiles, landed on a winning strategy. They reveal in unrivaled detail how Joe Biden and his team brushed off concerns about his age, ignored polling numbers, and held off the next generation of eager Democratic hopefuls--even as Biden was dealing with his own special counsel investigation and the trial of his son Hunter. After his disastrous debate performance forced him to withdraw, Biden anointed Vice President Kamala Harris as the candidate and tasked her with running the shortest presidential campaign in modern U.S. history. With only 107 days to distinguish herself from the past four years, Harris lacked the time or space to outrun Biden's shadow--a challenge in and of itself, but one which Biden would make even more difficult. On November 5th, 2024, Trump was elected the nation's forty-seventh president, and would return to power vindicated, emboldened, unrestrained, and burning for revenge. Gripping, revelatory, and deeply reported, 2024 is the shocking inside story of the election that tested American democracy and would go on to shape the future of the free world"--

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2nd Floor New Shelf 324.973/Dawsey (NEW SHELF) Due Aug 21, 2025
  • Introduction
  • Part 1. Comebacks
  • 1. Point of No Return
  • 2. Not Dead
  • 3. Just Business
  • 4. Inevitable
  • 5. Sleepwalking
  • 6. Capitulation
  • Part 2. Rematch
  • 7. A Poor Memory
  • 8. A Takeover
  • 9. Criminal
  • 10. The Block
  • 11. "We're F-ed"
  • 12. The Drumbeat
  • 13. July 13, 2024
  • 14. Unity
  • 15. Lord Almighty
  • Part 3. Shakeup
  • 16. Unburdened
  • 17. Cruel Summer
  • 18. Honeymoon
  • 19. "Kick His A-"
  • 20. Paranoia
  • 21. A Man's World
  • 22. Warnings
  • 23. Garbage In, Garbage Out
  • 24. The Ballroom and the Boiler Room
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Three experienced D.C. reporters chronicle last year's campaign. This isn't the first behind-the-scenes look at the recent presidential race, but it's among the sturdiest, a well-sourced, process-oriented account that shows how inertia and missed opportunities deflated the Democrats. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both parties and "alumni" from former President Barack Obama's team, Dawsey, Pager, and Arnsdorf, who cover politics for theWall Street Journal, theNew York Times, and theWashington Post, respectively, write that Democrats made crucial decisions "by default." In a chapter titled "Sleepwalking," they write, "Joe Biden decided to run for reelection by not deciding. He told aides: I'm running until I tell you I'm not. And he never told them he wasn't." Staffers didn't want to look disloyal by suggesting he reconsider, "so no one ever said anything." Later, one-time Obama staffers, worried about Biden's chances, "looked for a diplomatic way to offer free assistance" on "specific projects." Biden's team promised to be in touch, but the collaboration never happened. After Biden's disastrous debate performance, Ron Klain, his former chief of staff, vented about Biden's apparent lack of urgency: "I have no fucking clue why he's going to Camp David this weekend" instead of "working the phones" to reassure nervous Democrats. The reporters' sources close to Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the nominee after Biden left the race, describe similar frustrations with her campaign's sluggish decision-making and failure to challenge allegations made by Donald Trump. The authors find little new to write about Trump, retelling how criminal indictments and assassination attempts worked to his advantage and describing his staunchest supporters' belief that God is looking out for him. But this is an excusable shortcoming in a substantive effort that's ideal for readers reluctant to read multiple books on the subject. With deep reporting and strong analysis, this might emerge as the definitive title on a hugely consequential election. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.