The entire narrative of what happened in Donald Trump's White House during his catastrophic 2020 campaign has never been revealed before. What was actually going on around the president while the administration failed to control the coronavirus, resulting in the deaths of nearly half a million Americans? Who was influencing Trump when he refused to accept an election he obviously lost and propagated election fraud lies? Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig address these concerns by revealing the inner workings of a broken and incompetent administration in unprecedented, shocking detail.

Rucker and Leonnig offer a detailed analysis of the most catastrophic year in a presidency unlike any other, focusing on Trump and the major people surrounding him—doctors, generals, top advisors, and Trump family members. Their sources were there as Trump repeatedly placed his own benefit ahead of the country's good. These eyewitnesses to history speak of his desire to send the military into the streets of American cities to suppress the protest movement in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, all in the name of boosting his image of strength ahead of the election. These sources saw personally his reluctance to take the coronavirus danger seriously, even to the extent of enabling himself and others to get sick. This is the story of a country sabotaged by its own leader on economic, medical, and political levels, culminating in a groundbreaking, minute-by-minute account of exactly what happened in the Capitol building on January 6, when Trump's supporters so easily breached the most sacred halls of American democracy, and how the president reacted. Rucker and Leonnig explain and expose precisely who enabled—and foiled—Trump in his frantic attempt to cling to power, thanks to unprecedented access.

This book is intended to be read and analyzed by people and historians alike for decades to come.