...there is no Rosebud here, no epiphany that explains it all. But the many revealing scenes cohere into a fascinating portrait ... In a vignette at once slightly comical and chilling, Trump discovers, or is discovered by, the malevolent Roy Cohn. The year is 1973, and Trump, scion of an outer-borough housing developer, is trying to make the jump from the bridge-and-tunnel crowd to the Manhattan glitterati...In the bar of Le Club, Trump finds a man with hooded eyes and a scarred face — the sinister Cohn, Sen. Joe McCarthy’s henchman, who has long since clawed back from McCarthy’s televised downfall in the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings to become a potent lawyer/fixer in Manhattan. Young Donald explains to Cohn that he has a problem: His real estate company has been sued by the state for racial bias. Trump says he is thinking of settling the case. Nonsense, says Cohn. You never settle: Hit back. Countersue. Trump promptly hires Cohn, the beginning of a beautiful friendship ... It was apparent that Trump had no friends, outside his immediate family ... Trump the outrageous poseur becomes sadder and more real in this fine book.
Any voter who is not already devoted to Trump's cause will find plenty of reason to think long and hard about whether to support him after reading this book ... Trump Revealed delivers enough devastating details to disqualify virtually any other candidate. Talented writers Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher have taken the work of dozens of Post journalists and woven it into a compelling narrative.
...presents a portrait of a man 'far more complex than his simple language might indicate, [with] motivations and values . . . informed by his parents, his upbringing, his victories and his defeats, and his lifelong quest for love and acceptance.' To arrive at that conclusion, the Post sent staffers not only to the Isle of Lewis, off the Scottish coast, but to almost everywhere that Trump had left a footprint ... The biggest problem with this book, likely the most complete and nuanced life of Trump thus far, is nobody’s fault. It simply ends too soon and leaves unmentioned Trump’s unprecedented meltdown in the days that followed the convention in Cleveland.
...provide[s] useful, vigorously reported overviews of Mr. Trump’s life and career ... deftly charts his single-minded building of his gaudy brand and his often masterful manipulation of the media.
Although the book was written hurriedly and by committee, it's a smooth read that dives deep into his personal life and business record ... for those who expect that Trump will bring a Midas touch to the White House, the book points out his history of jumping into areas where he had no expertise and making promises that these ventures would be the greatest, only to find himself in over his head, overextended and failing.
As far as these biographies go, many of which are rushed and poorly written, Trump Revealed is excellent. Fisher and Kranish had plenty of access to Trump for interviews, and their research seems extensive ... And though the book certainly confirmed many of my suspicions about Trump’s biography, it didn’t answer my questions of why. Why is Trump the way he is? Why doesn’t he act like a normal human being? Why is he so obsessed with what other people think of him? This isn’t a knock on Fisher and Kranish’s work; these sorts of topical presidential campaign biographies don’t dig into a figure’s brain. Motivation is generally left to the historians.
