A Very Stable Genius

Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

By: Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig

Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Carol Leonnig, Philip Rucker

Length: 18 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

The instant number-one best seller.

“This taut and terrifying book is among the most closely observed accounts of Donald J. Trump’s shambolic tenure in office to date." (Dwight Garner, The New York Times)

Washington Post national investigative reporter Carol Leonnig and White House bureau chief Philip Rucker, both Pulitzer Prize winners, provide the definitive insider narrative of Donald Trump’s presidency

“I alone can fix it.” So proclaimed Donald J. Trump on July 21, 2016, accepting the Republican presidential nomination and promising to restore what he described as a fallen nation. Yet as he undertook the actual work of the commander in chief, it became nearly impossible to see beyond the daily chaos of scandal, investigation, and constant bluster. In fact, there were patterns to his behavior and that of his associates. The universal value of the Trump administration was loyalty - not to the country but to the president himself - and Trump’s north star was always the perpetuation of his own power.

With deep and unmatched sources throughout Washington, DC, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker reveal the 45th president up close. Here, for the first time, certain officials who felt honor-bound not to divulge what they witnessed in positions of trust tell the truth for the benefit of history.

A peerless and gripping narrative, A Very Stable Genius not only reveals President Trump at his most unvarnished but shows how he tested the strength of America’s democracy and its common heart as a nation.

©2020 Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"[Rucker and Leonnig] are meticulous journalists, and this taut and terrifying book is among the most closely observed accounts of Donald J. Trump’s shambolic tenure in office to date.... Their newspaper’s ominous, love-it-or-hate-it motto is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness.’ A Very Stable Genius flicks the lights on from its first pages." (Dwight Garner, New York Times)

"Richly sourced and highly readable... It is not just another Trump tell-all or third-party confessional. It is unsettling, not salacious." (Lloyd Green, The Guardian)

"Imagine, for a moment, a high-octane courtroom prosecutor summing up for the jury a case built on the vivid testimony of multiple eye-witnesses.... You could scarcely ask for more capable advocates. Leonnig won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the U.S. Secret Service in 2015, then joined Rucker and others on a team awarded the Pulitzer for stories on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Their new, collaborative account...walks readers step by step through the first 30 months or so of a presidency like no other. They leave little doubt that they and many of their sources regard that presidency as an unmitigated and deepening disaster - a threat to American government as we have known it. Whatever may happen to that impeachment effort in the weeks and months ahead, it creates a moment of intermission in the Trump saga and a chance to consider how the landscape has already been altered by this president. A Very Stable Genius offers a harrowing companion narrative to be read during intermission." (Ron Elving, NPR)

Trumped

An amazing in depth portrayal of our President's betrayal of American institutions. We are a diminished nation. Everyone must check out this work.

Excellent Read!

An excellent example of what we need to hear as citizens to help overcome rouge leaders.

nothing shocking

Good, worth the credit but certainly nothing in here that hasn't already been reported. He's a moron, case closed.

It’s just so depressing!

Well researched, well written and well read. For three years now (~40 years for us ex-New Yorkers), we are exposed to another seemingly rock bottom Trump behavior, only to be fooled yet again. This book provides a near endless, mind numbingly detailed list of Trump’s amoral, toxic narcissism. The book ends with an observation that the notion we are a country of laws, not men, is a fairy tale. We and our representatives must actively uphold the law and the Constitution, or they and it are mere slips of paper. Another 4 years would be terminal. USA: RIP.

A fair understanding of Trump

A well researched look into the early part of the presidency. It gave me a new respect of many of Trumps sides although disturbing. I get that they liked his policies and thought they could contain his need for control of everything, but they were wrong, Choen was right, Trump will not suffer any slight no matter how small or large. The book shows this in detail.

Robotic

The book is very good. The reading? Not so much. Sounds very robotic. It does the book no favors. Makes it hard to stay with it.

banned book or canonical text? 2020 will tell...

this text will go down as a documenting of Americas demise or our Resurrection. it will either become essential reading in one scenario or a Banned Book in another.

As alarming as you'd expect

A gripping play by play of the first three years in the Trump White House. Helpful to revisit some details given the pace and churn from this administration.

Narration is uncomfortable and robotic even after increasing the pace a bit.

Not much truly new to me, but fascinating

I am just an extremely busy adult who does my best to keep up with the political goings-on, seeing as how current events seem to point to a genuine crisis for our democracy and fears that I will not be around to see it or do anything about it... (76 years old and still kicking). So I devour all I can in news and blog sources, etc., both the ones that lean left but some that lean right as well, to try to get more than a very superficial sense of the real facts/events, not just what is presented by one side or the other.

That said, as pertains to this book, I was a mite disappointed that as I went along, there did not seem to be a single, what I would call major, event description that I was not already familiar with. Naturally I have consumed every book relating to our current political world in the last several years and all the publications I can find time for as well, but I still expected there to be a heck of a lot of new stuff that never made it into what I’d been consuming all along.

Anyway, there IS a ton of color related to most of the “big news items” that I had not encountered any place else, that was well worth hearing about and folding into my admittedly limited (comparatively speaking) knowledge of these events. Because it is a frustration-making fact that the big news generally only includes stuff that grabs eyeballs and that leaves some of us scratching our heads about the underneath setting. Which can make ALL the difference.

The biggest thing you can learn probably, is just who our current president IS. That’s pretty obvious without a lot of background color, but the book really fills out the portrait like you can’t get anyplace else that I have found. That is helpful and of extreme importance, in terms of understanding world events. It really helps, but also profoundly disappoints, to learn just how much of the lives of world citizens is determined by the greed of one human being. And it also shocks the conscience, although not in a new way because any thinking person has to have noticed this as we went along, the extent to which the republicans have not only excused inexcusable acts of this president, but gone on to profit personally by joining in on the graft and grabbing themselves. As witness right now, with the entire Senate taking orders from McConnell so as not to let go of this golden goose. Don’t even get me started on the republicans stopping ALL actions from the House to ensure what happened in 16 isn’t repeated. It IS being repeated even as I write this. It really hurts to know this. Of all the scandal that hits the news about this administration, this other fact has stayed under the general public radar. I can’t help but think if the extent of this scheme alone were given the air time of other bad news, there would be rioting in the streets. And corrections would happen. Because people do care. But they first have to KNOW.

Ok no more preaching. I vote independent and always try my best to choose the party with the most personal integrity. That is the No. 1 requirement because everything flows from that quality. Everything. Not an easy task but it has to be done.

Please do get this book if you relish the what I call color, surrounding all the news you’ve heard about for the last few years, if you hunger for a deeper understanding and getting some questions answered. It seems to be very factual and generally unbiased in presenting some very polarizing information, done as well and honestly as any reporter could do, in my opinion. I do not hold the NYT blameless in general nor any of my news sources but I will stand up for these two reporters and the incredibly deep and thorough job they have done here. It is a very very important work and comes at a critical moment in the saga, considering all citizens must first learn the truth before they can take a stand.

Historic and absolutely jaw-dropping

These two pieced together all the background surrounding the biggest flare ups of fascism within the trump administration since he took office. This account is truly what it must have been like to be a fly on the wall of the oval office. Marvelous, painstaking, and patriotic work!!