Peril

The book itself is written in a very conversational tone when discussing conversations and events that had happened as if it was occurring in real-time and you were there listening. Other chapters are informative, especially for those who might not keep up with current events and politics at a high level or those who might have forgotten details of the Biden Campaign and the Trump White House. The book is a timeline of key events from Biden mulling the decision to run for president and his concerns in doing so to losing early primaries and mounting a comeback to win the Democratic Party's nomination. In Trump's parts of the book, it dives into the Trump White House and reelection campaign. This entails events such as the beginning of the COVID pandemic, June 1, election night, Trump and his associates trying to overturn the election, and the insurrection at the Capitol (among other events) with precise detail in between. Essentially, the book highlights events from late 2019 to early 2021 for Biden and Trump. It provides background, dialogue, conversations, and other material I have not heard before until reading the book. A lot of the material was unknown before this book's publishing, too. This material stemmed from important people within both bases that had a first-hand look or were directly involved with what was going on but had not spoken out until now. Numerous people in the book are figures many would not have initially associated with being involved but were there. I've read through some of the other reviews (specifically those that gave it a low rating) and can't help but notice a common theme. This theme is that there is allegedly a bias by the authors that makes the book pro-Biden and anti-Trump. With that, I should give a disclaimer that if factual and well-documented conversations, events, actions, or any other occurrences within the final years of the Trump presidency might trigger or offend you, this is not the book for you. Overall, a great read. It certainly is a must-read if you are interested in politics and current events.

“We have much to do in this winter of peril.” PERIL is an expose that offers a comparative look at Trump and his successor Biden, and the notable pair of investigative political journalists pack a real punch. In another era, Bob Woodward broke the Watergate Scandal with colleague Carl Bernstein, and has a long and storied career. Robert Costa, if you recall, is the White House political reporter that President Trump exercised an egomaniacal sense of power to humiliate and publicly discredit during a press conference, effectively trying to ban him from the White House. President Trump’s reign (“regime”) brought me closer to politics than I’d ever been in my life, even during college. For voting purposes, I’m registered with one of the major parties, although I pride myself on independent thinking and embrace various platform issues from the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties. Depends on the issue. My politics follow what makes balanced sense, not what politicians spew for votes or the fickle public believes on any given day. I felt so transgressed and brutalized as an American by Trumpian politics and the assault on American democracy, which bordered increasingly on flat-out Fascism, that I supported Biden as the anti-Trump candidate. It had been four years of watching a trainwreck over and over. That doesn’t mean that I previously or ever would support or vote for Trump, or support Biden again. My support of Biden was more about restoring a truer sense of America on the world stage, an optimistic hope for “un-fracturing” a severely polarized America, and preventing a slow slide into an inevitable dictatorship, than it was about any alignment with all that Biden represented. We are in dangerous times and need to pick our poison wisely. A book that ostensibly offered a comparative view with insider insight into the transition of power between both men at arguably the most trying period in our lifetimes brought me right back into the political fold. World threats, the shaken faith of our Allies, and a worldwide pandemic is what Trump left in his disordered wake, but can Biden answer the call? Trump brought shame, but will Biden restore honor and all that we have always held dear? I found the political dissection riveting and not without a certain voyeuristic curiosity about things not publicly known before, or at least exposed in much more depth. In some respects, the truth is hard to swallow and there will undoubtedly continue to be polarization from Trumpists, but the timeline and insider accounts are not only illuminating, but also underscore more flaws in our nation’s politics and leadership. Personally, I hope we are not in the first stages of the decline and downfall of America with a tipping point too far gone to rectify. I have often likened our current democracy to the New Rome and all that fate entails. Biden is not a panacea, and Trump may rise again. We’re not out of the woods yet, and peril still exists.

Bob Woodward books to me are like big bags of potato chips. I can't resist them, I can finish them off in a few sittings, they're satisfying in the moment, and once opened, they have a short shelf life so are better enjoyed while fresh - you can't pull them off your shelf in a year or two and expect them to be anywhere near as good. As a result, I avoid buying potato chips altogether, otherwise I will binge on them. I lack such self control when it comes to Bob Woodward books. Fear and Rage took us inside the Trump presidency as it was happening. "Peril" invites us to look back at the administration's waning days and the beginning of the Biden administration. It seems a little early to want to relive this in book form - didn’t all of this just happen? The past year-plus has already been news overload, with the pandemic, the election and the insurrection, so if you’ve been paying any attention, much of what’s recounted here will be familiar. But there are plenty of unique nuggets, most of which have already been revealed in pre-publication news articles about the book - such as Gen. Mark Milley’s efforts to prevent Trump from instigating a “Wag the Dog” style armed conflict, the John Eastman “coup memo,” Mike Pence’s call to Dan Quayle for advice, and so on. Reading these spoilers in advance blunts their impact when read in the context of the book, but it shouldn’t detract from the impressiveness of the reporting that uncovered them. The rest of the book is vintage Woodward, in that it takes you inside the rooms where conversations were happening, allowing you to relive now-familiar events with a different, fly-on-the-wall perspective. Even though you know what happened next and how it all turned out in the end, it’s still an engrossing read. Woodward's co-writing partnership with Robert Costa seemingly helped get this book out just a year after the previous one, cutting in half the two-year interval between the first two books. But the dual authorship never shows any seams, so it still reads like a Woodward book. The narrative goes back and forth between Trump and Biden - the chapters on Trump are both surprising and entirely unsurprising at this point, while the chapters on Biden mostly read like a straightforward recounting of well-reported events. About ¾ of the way through, the book loses some steam as the story progresses to Biden’s first few months in office, and wonkish discussions of the efforts to get his coronavirus relief package through Congress. As is Woodward’s style, all interviews for the book were conducted on background, so it’s left to the reader to deduce who spoke with the authors. But it’s not at all difficult to figure out. The problem is that you end up with a lot of stories designed to make the teller look good. Bill Barr, for example, comes across looking like a principled, irreproachable, calming influence in the chaotic final days of the Trump administration - according, apparently, to Bill Barr. And Lindsey Graham never comes across quite so good as when Lindsey Graham is telling the story. It will be decades before the events of this past year or so can be properly analyzed as history. If you just can’t wait, this book - which neatly concludes the trilogy in its final few sentences - will serve its purpose as the first draft of that history. And it will undoubtedly prove useful for future authors and historians to build upon. It’s not something I’m likely to pull off the shelf in a year or two or three to reread, but like that bag of chips I just can’t resist - it may not provide lasting nutritional value, but it sure tasted good.

In this age of frighteningly-titled books about Donald Trump, Peril is especially scary. This book, by two Washington Post journalists, Bob Woodward, perhaps the best-known reporter in the country, and Robert Costa, also becoming well known, especially as a result of this book, covers a critical period in American history and politics. The period is the transition from the Trump administration and that of Joseph Biden. Why is this period so critical? Because it is the time during which our democracy was delivered its most serious threat it has ever seen. Why so? Because the threat, the so-called insurrection that occurred on January 6th, 2020, was engineered by followers of the president of the United States in his waning days in office, merely two weeks in advance of the inauguration of the new president. The assault on the U.S. capitol was, in my mind, the most disastrous event in the history of this country, even more jolting than the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that led us into WW II or the terrorist attack on 9/11, because the threat this time came from within. We waged war on Japan and in Afghanistan as a consequence of these past foreign actions, but how does one wage war on the chief executive office of our nation? We took the only step available under our system, that of impeachment, but because of the extreme disunity extant in the American Congress, only the first stage of impeachment succeeded, even if imposed twice…for the first time in American history. The second stage, that of removal from office, was not enacted because the lack of a shared purpose between the two principal political parties in our country prevented the necessary commitment to the oath of office of a sufficient number of the members of the Senate. The second vote by the Senate, if different from the first, if in favor of removal, simply would have been for show, since a president already sent back home could not have been removed from office. He had been removed already by the voters. In a sense, then, Peril, being written about the time between Biden’s winning of the presidency and essentially the present, is a warning to the American electorate that our democracy is in danger, not from the current president, but from the immediate former one. He is still obsessed with his loss of the 2020 election and determined to get revenge in any way possible. Of course, winning the presidency in 2024 would provide him the greatest platform from which to attack his perceived enemies. Unfortunately, that platform also allows him access to the codes that can be used to unleash a bombardment that conceivably could remove life from our planet. So, Woodward and Costa remind us why “peril remains,” to use the last two words of their epilogue. I recommend this book highly to any person concerned with what 2024 will bring, and I suggest that Woodward and Costa start preparing for the follow-up to Peril, which, naturally, should be entitled Vengeance.

This is another great book by Bob Woodward. I especially enjoy reading from chapter 31 and on. They mostly based on recorded interview of real persons, many are still living, holding important positions. Their names may appear again on the ballots in the next election cycle. So, it is for every voter to get to know them well and make intelligent choice. Because wouldn't you rather have someone who is ... to represent you? I used to think that my one vote is only one of millions that determine who gets elected. Who cares, right? But remember the millions of votes that determine the winner come from individuals like you and I. You and I can choose the future of our country, influence our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. Well, this book can help you determine what kind of person many of them are. The Kindle version can give you clear text and choose the font size that is comfortable to your eyes. You can carry around wherever you go. It holds hundreds of book in your pocket, never gets any heavier when you load more onto it ...

What a powerhouse book about the tumultuous 2020 election — its run-up and aftermath. Juxtaposing interviews and actions from both the Biden and Trump camps added depth of insight to give a more balanced view of events. I always appreciate the even approach Bob Woodward takes to his books. With Robert Costa, his co-author with Peril, they’re fair and try to present their subjects (i.e., the presidents) with reporting toughness yet with grace. Largely they succeed. The reader walks away with a gentler perspective about several key players and a fuller perspective about others. The flaw I see with this book is that sometimes I feel they gave too soft-handed an approach to some issues. For example, they were pretty light in how Trump handled the pandemic. Though in fairness, Woodward did deal with that the pandemic in far greater depth in his previous book, Rage. Also in one error I saw they point out that Biden didn’t give credit to Trump for the vaccine development, but actually he did. The biggest oversight in this book is that they definitely give Biden a huge reprieve by not talking about the chaos of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. While the authors do cover the run-up to the decision to withdraw with depth, they oddly don’t mention one word about the actual withdrawal itself and the flaws in its execution. This book was really hard to put down, with so much to offer. The Biden presidency is just beginning so it’s hard to write about with much certainty. Yet with 2020 looming so deeply over the elections of 2022 and 2024, this book is a major addition to the insider-politics genre.

This reader tends not to read political books, because the authors tend not to be neutral. When it was announced that the new Robert Woodward & Robert Costa book “Peril” was about to be released, some of the blurbs were interesting, so this reader decided to buy it. The interesting blurbs were about General Mark Alexander Milley and Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi. General Milley should be court-martialed, stripped of his rank, and provided free housing at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for the rest of his life. Nancy Pelosi belongs in prison for her behind the scenes activities concerning this nation’s nuclear codes. When reading this book, one wonders how a human being could hate someone as much as Pelosi hates President Trump. As the story continued, it appeared to be one more Leftist publication on how evil President Trump was and is. Yes, the president had/has some annoying personality traits. He never should have gotten on Twitter. His daily twits were beneath him. Slamming people in his speeches got old. The slams were beneath him. When watching the final debates with Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, one knew there was a problem. Talking over Biden was beneath him. Still, as this reader continue his reading journey through “Peril”, one became aware that the two authors had no plans to talk about all the successes President Trump achieved. That got really old, to the point where this reader considering slamming the book shut, but did not because of a belief that once you begin a book, you finish it. The reading journey continued through the election, so the story now focused on Biden. The two authors presented Biden as an experienced senior statesman. He took charge of every issue. All the decisions were made by him. He could do no wrong. He was on the path to becoming the most popular president in history. The views of the authors did not follow the history of the year 2021. As the reading journey continued towards the end of the book, something changed. The writing was different. Most probably the two authors discarded what was previously written, knowing that the situation in America and the world had changed because of President Biden. The earlier hate they expressed against President Trump changed. Now, some of the words were positive. It must have been difficult for them to use positive words about President Trump. This reader was surprised what was not in the book and those were the decisions made by President Biden on January 20, 2021. The decision to reverse President Trump’s policies on the border and stopping the building of the border wall, created an incredible crisis that continues to this day. This reader no longer walks his ranch land in southern Arizona, which is near the border, because of unwelcomed visitors. The authors did not mention the action taken on January 20, 2021 to stop the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, which made the United States dependent on foreign oil, when it was previously oil independent. The list goes on, yet the authors did not mention them. General Mark Milley seemed to be mentioned in almost every chapter, yet the authors failed to mention how Milley and Secretary of Defense Lloyd James Austin brought the Woke culture into the military. Reservists, who are 11-Bravos have two weeks of active duty per year. Instead of blowing things up, they were in classrooms being indoctrinated in issues that have no place in our military. For most of the book, this reader gave it one star. After reading the final chapters it was moved up to three stars. In six months, this reader will again read “Peril”, to see if he changed any opinion about this story.

I trust Bob Woodward. (I don’t know enough about Robert Costa to trust or to mistrust him.) One could view Peril as the third book in a trilogy, beginning with Fear and followed up by Rage. Peril covers the waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency, and the very early days of Joe Biden’s first term. I trust Woodward to report fairly on the tumultuous transition of power, and as objectively as possible. Thus, I feel justified in concluding that the interim between president 45 and 46 was indeed as perilous a time as I have ever lived through. An opinion: I believe that democracy has become something that Americans take for granted. I sense an unspoken assurance that our system is natural and invulnerable. I do not believe that anyone who followed the events of January 6th, 2021, knows how seditious the invasion of the US Capitol building really was. Reading Woodward’s text shone a light on how elected representatives responded to the attack. Our leadership was shaken to its core. None of the people whom Woodward quotes saw the invasion as anything other than what it was: a crime, and an unthinkable one at that. Woodward may be reiterating events we have already read about, but his narrative is harrowing. One of the most unsettling aspects in my view was Trump’s utter indifference to the damage being done to the faith of the rank and file in democracy. Woodward does not tell us any new events, but he puts some very human faces and voices to them, in as rational and as neutral a manner as imaginable. Neither history nor current day Trump supporters will care very much what I think. But Peril was a book that I could not put down, as unnerving as it was on every page.