Book review of Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency by Michael Wolff

“Landslide” was told through sources in Trump’s White House and re-election campaign, whose interests are said to have washed their reputations through Wolff. And Wolff seemed happy to force, add bleach to the whites. He accepts the stories of aides, who present themselves as “self-appointed adults in the room” and claim to have a tame influence on Trump’s wild instincts. “Therefore,” writes Wolff, conveying the thoughts of these people, “you want to be there to guide him away from those who might encourage his fire and rage.” Fighting heroically against other malign agents were shocked soldiers standing in this position, the president and those who encouraged him were appalled. When Rudy Giuliani appeared at a now-famous press conference, hair dye flowing in a blood-like streak down his ears and neck, Wolff wrote, “Some White House aides, in trying to understand how they get here, will agree that the story of the frog in the hot water slowly describes their plight: somehow they don’t realize they’re being boiled alive. But now they know, and nearly all mark Rudy’s hair dye press conference as the moment when they can no longer deny that the Cartesian world is over. “