Landslide

The Final Days of the Trump Presidency

By: Michael Wolff

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's Summary

New York Times best-selling author of Fire and Fury and Siege completes the trilogy on the epic presidency of Donald J. Trump. 

With Fire and Fury, Wolff defined the first phase of the Trump administration; in Siege, he wrote an explosive account of a presidency under fire. In Landslide, Wolff closes the story of Trump's four years in office and his tumultuous last months at the helm of the country, based on Wolff's extraordinary access to White House aides and to the former president himself, yielding a wealth of new information and insights about what really happened inside the highest office in the land, and the world.

©2021 Michael Wolff (P)2021 Hachette Audio

Hilarity and insight

Such a fascinating and well written insight with a few laugh out loud moments near the end. Amazing to see how things at the top can operate with incompetence like anywhere else.

Voice from the sample is not the narrator

The book is not bad but a bad thing is that after listening to a sample I decided to purchase the book, only to realize later that the voice from the sample is not the one narrating the book. Not a good strategy for an audio book. Voice is everything here.

Delightfully grim and snipey

Michael Wolff’s trilogy of books on the Trump presidency are energetic, engaging and filled with memorable and audacious anecdotes. Landslide is a more than worthy conclusion to these accounts and more jaw-dropping than the others.

Fire and Fury saw Wolff receiving unwise access to the White House, and Siege had him relying on inside sources due to the fallout from publication of the first. Landslide sees Wolff ultimately in conversation with the man himself in addition to the sources he has on the inside.

It’s hard to tell if Wolff is writing the book as a way of airing personal grievances (such as Lord Ashcroft’s biography of David Cameron) or simply a keen sense of journalistic seediness abs spectacle. It almost certainly is not out of a sense of ethical or moral compunction. But whatever the case it comes across as catty but entirely plausible if you’ve followed the news during the presidency. But either way it makes it a far easier read (or listen) than Woodward’s Rage which feels more professional and balanced, but dull.

We are taken from the election, to the election loss to the capitol riots and the bumbling legal fallout, ending with Trump settling into life at Mar-a-lago. It’s detailed and comprehensive with some shocking if unsurprising revelations. It’s maybe not 100% reliable, but it’s definitely amusing and believable.

The performance is acceptable and quite expressive, though it feels like occasionally there is a misinterpretation of some of the direct quotes. Whatever the case, it keeps your attention even if the narrative doesn’t, which it will.

Was he really that that woeful?

Ok, I do not like Trump, his character (from what I’ve seen and heard in the media) or his politics. As such, this book already had an eager and excited set of ears waiting. What I heard was even more than I could expect in relating the last days of the Trump presidency, his delusions and his dealings with his hangers on. To that point it was extremely entertaining and even eye opening.
That leaves me, however, with the feeling that maybe it was just too one-sided. Could he really have been that bad and that narcissistic? Honestly? How could he have stayed in power for four years behaving like that? Surely the American ‘system’ couldn’t allow a person who seemed to think he was a dictator to have that much influence, could it?
So there is my problem. I massively enjoyed the book, but I have a slight nagging feeling that I have not been given a fair representation of some of the facts. That is why I can only give 4 stars.

Perfect match of author and narrator

A true guilty treat of a listen, with a sensational read by Holter Graham. While much of the material is broadly familiar to your average US political junkie, it’s the mind-boggling detail and in-the-room vibe that lifts this account. And the whole Impeachment 2 saga is a priceless piece of comic writing. I also appreciate that Wolff is so resolutely not po-faced - he’s having faaaaar too much fun to start wringing his hands. I mean yes Trump is palpably mad, but he’s also fathomlessly entertaining. Still - please don’t elect him again!

the best of the trilogy

I don't live in the USA but have been fascinated by the last 4 years. I thought I was pretty informed as I avidly read the American news every day but this book provides so much detail that I was not aware of.

This is the best book I have read so far regarding the Trump presidency.

The burning question for me that the book doesn't Answer?
Why has Giuliani not been indicted for the insurrection? He's obviously the key architect for the Big Lie and should be held as accountable as Trump in my opinion.

Very detailed on the background to the election

I've got the other two books Wolff has done on Trup and I'd say this one is the best. It will be interesting how this holds up against the other books on Trump that are coming out over the next few months.

Interesting but punches only land intermittently

The most worrying part of this book was in one of the interspersed audio clips of Trump speaking (and that’s a great technical trick which enhances the listening experience), when he’s laying out a litany of electoral offences and actually sounds coherent and reasoned. There is no fact check following to dismember the allegations - which have been thoroughly debunked elsewhere. I found that a jarring omission, strange in a book the central tenet of which seems to be that Trump was so out of his depth that he couldn’t possibly have intended for the events of January 6th.

Overall the book is great. It is slightly repetitive, emphasising (often times without necessarily providing any quotations or sense that the view taken is based on conversations with players in the political drama) the unreality of the idea that Trump could get the election overturned. In that sense, while it carpets Republicans for toadying to Trump, it also lets them off the hook, because it was all just theatre, none of it meant anything, “go back to bed America, your government is in control again.” But this doesn’t detract from some of the most powerful elements, like the black comedy of narrating the voices of those who stormed the Capitol, or the absolutely surreal conversations between Trump’s legal people in “Impeachment II: If at first you don’t succeed.”

In general I think book lacks the depth and verve of the two Woodward books on Trump, and based on this I probably wouldn’t get the other two books by Wolff, but Woodward didn’t cover this period and given the lacuna in decent long form journalism, I recommend this book.

After this, read Ian Kershaw

"Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution."

Trumps playbook is amazing, considering that he doesn`t read books. The similarity to
the strategy of Hitler in the twenties and thirties is incredibly and equally scaring.
"Fake charisma" is dangerous and the final solution may be catastrophic.

Not The Best

Listened to both previous books. Writing not as good as the other two, seems rushed and that the author has an axe to grind with Trump. Get the impression that this is the authors own opinion of what happened rather than what actually happened and seems biased. Disappointed as I really enjoyed the other two books. Performance great as always.

Excellent

Loved it and a very interesting insight into the deranged mind of DJT and just how ignorant one man can be !!