The NPR Politics Podcast

Our next book will be Uncivil Agreement by Liliana Mason.

This year we started the NPR Politics Book Club, where we pick a book that we think gets to the heart of the political moment and we read it along with all of you.

We chose Carlos Lozada's What Were We Thinking? A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era.

books like Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes' book On Making the Presidency that try to get at that deeper question of, well, okay, yes, Trump is breaking all these norms.

Pete Buttigieg's book Trust is about this.

a book by Liliana Mason, a political scientist, who wrote a book called Uncivil Agreement.

a book like America for Americans by the historian Erica Lee is a book that shows how alongside the tradition of America as a nation of immigrants is an equally strong tradition of xenophobia and rejection of outsiders.

Our first book is What Were We Thinking? A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era by Carlos Lozada. We are so excited and we hope you are too.

But remember, you can join our brand new book club by joining our Facebook group. Again, that URL is n.pr slash politics group. So go there. Request to join.

She wrote a book that is pretty on point for this conversation. It is called Latino Politics.

She wrote a book all about it. It is called Latino Politics.

Publishers of Rage by Bob Woodward, Rage goes behind the scenes of the Donald Trump presidency with new details about Trump's responses to a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest and how these responses were rooted in the leadership style he developed during his first three years as president.

Simon & Schuster, publishers of Rage by Bob Woodward. Rage goes behind the scenes of the Donald Trump presidency with new details about Trump's responses to a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest and how these responses were rooted in the leadership style he developed during his first three years as president. Rage by Bob Woodward, wherever books are sold.

So yesterday we got to the big revelations out of Bob Woodward's new book, Rage. I did mistakenly call it Fear. I apologize when he writes his third Trump book called Blurg.

The announcement was not on his original schedule. It was only announced after all this news broke about the Woodward book.

President Trump knowingly misled the country, he leads about the risks of the coronavirus pandemic. That is the top line of Bob Woodward's new book, excerpts began to trickle out from today.

Now Ron, since you reviewed the book for NPR, you're one of probably at this point a handful of people in the country who have actually read the full book.

It seems to be obviously an intentional decision in the early weeks and months. The book actually begins, the first sentence of the prologue talks about an Oval Office meeting on January, now we're talking January 28th where the top two people on the National Security Agency team ... told the president this is not only going to be a big deal, this is going to be the biggest challenge of your presidency.

Ron, like I said, you have read the whole book already. There was a lot more material in here aside from how the president has handled the coronavirus. What else jumped out to you?

Bob Woodward's conclusion when he says that he has simply reached the conclusion that Donald Trump is not the man for the job.

He is a painter, I'm not sure if you all know but he loves to paint and he's known, he does actually have some pretty good paintings, I will say if you like ever look up some of his work, it's pretty good.

He has... is putting out this book where he's going to paint 43 immigrants, you know him being the 43rd President of the United States, and it's coming out next... Subtle, subtle! Yes. It's coming out next year and I just thought it was a really heartwarming story.

He's going to have this book out called Out of Many One, which are his own paintings and portraits of various immigrants that he's met over the years.

nicole buyer on her new book very fat very brave and how to love yourself

I talked to Peter Pomerantsev, who he wrote a book about social media disinformation campaigns that came out last year called This Is Not Propaganda.

but the bunny is fishing for a bunny. That is oh there it is... but wait that bunny fishing for a bunny is from a different book exactly it's from a different book a different; Margaret Wise Brown you know what else that book runaway bunny is on the bookshelf.

and escape from this and this might not be the case for everybody is a couple of our editors recommended to me a book it was a bestseller a couple years ago so a lot of listeners might know about it already uh barry hardiman and eric mcdaniel both recommended this book called station 11 which wait for it is a post apocalyptic book about a flu pandemic that wipes out 99 percent of the population

this may not be your jam right now but for me it weirdly was and it follows a shakespeare troop that goes around the midwest performing shakespeare in the post flu apocalypse

and it was one of those books that i got it at the airport and even with a very busy campaign schedule tour through it in a matter of like four days and it was very strange to find comfort

in a book like that but for me that did it if you feel like that would make you more nervous maybe wait till late summer to read it but uh it was a really really great book maybe wait for the movie

wait for the movie i think it might be an hbo series coming i saw online i'd say i want to borrow your copy but i feel like i need to rub it down with hand sanitizer before i wipe it down

former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has made news with a new book called With All Do Respect

there are some eyebrow razors in there to put it mildly we will get to those in a moment

a good chunk of the book is about her fighting

she argues for President Trump's interests within his own administration

she writes about the United Nations but she's clearly focused on a much larger political future

He's a journalist and an author and he's got a book coming out. That's called The Only Plane in the Sky where he did a complete oral history interviewing hundreds of people involved in 9.11.

He is spending the day with a twitter thread of all of the most provocative quotes that he got from his oral history interviews, obviously in part to promote his book, but it is just an absolutely fascinating gripping read.

I would highly recommend it to anyone just to scroll through it when you've got some time because it is just so evocative of that day and time.

He wrote a really glowing review of it and said he could only read like ten pages and have to put it down because it's so visceral and intense, but highly recommended especially on a day like today.

He likes the oneonone thing of going into a room, doing the art of the deal, as he might put it, and quite frankly, strongarming other countries into doing what he would like them to do.