It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America

by David Cay Johnston

The Trump administration is remaking the government. It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America tells readers exactly how it is making America worse again.

Bestselling author and longtime Trump observer David Cay Johnston shines a light on the political termites who have infested our government under the Trump Administration, destroying it from within and compromising our jobs, safety, finances, and more.

No journalist knows Donald Trump better than David Cay Johnston, who has been following him since 1988. It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America goes inside the administration to show how the federal agencies that touch the lives of all Americans are being undermined. Here is just some of what you will learn:

The Wall. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told President Trump that Mexico will never pay for the border wall. So, Trump is proposing putting a tariff on Mexican imports. But a tariff will simply raise the price of Mexican goods in the US, meaning American consumers will end up paying for the wall—if it ever gets built.

Climate Change. Welcome to the new EPA, run by Scott Pruitt, a lawyer who has spent much of his career trying to destroy the agency he now heads. Secrecy reigns at the new EPA because Pruitt meets with industry executives to find out which clean air and clean water provisions they most want to roll back, and keeps staffers in the dark to make sure these pro-pollution plans don’t leak prematurely.

Stocking the Swamp. Contrary to his promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington, DC, Trump has filled his cabinet with millionaires and billionaires, from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a Goldman Sachs and hedge fund veteran who made much of his fortune foreclosing on homeowners to billionaire heiress Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who has already put the interests of bankers ahead of debt-burdened students and their families.

The Kleptocracy. Under Donald Trump conflict of interest is passé. When Trump isn’t in Washington, he stays at one of his properties, where the taxpayers pick up the tab for staffers, Secret Service, and so on, all at full price. And back in Washington, everyone now knows that the Trump International Hotel is the only place to stay if you want to do business with the administration. Meanwhile sons Donald Jr. and Eric run an eyes-wide-open blind trust of Trump holdings to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest—but not the reality.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Government, American History, Biography

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 16, 2018

About the author

David Cay Boyle Johnston (born December 24, 1948) is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

From 2009 to 2016 he was a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer who taught the tax, property, and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and the Whitman School of Management. From July 2011 until September 2012 he was a columnist for Reuters, writing, and producing video commentaries, on worldwide issues of tax, accounting, economics, public finance and business. Johnston is the board president of Investigative Reporters and Editors. He has also written for Al Jazeera English and America in recent years.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer-winning journalist specializing in economics and taxes, dives deep into the weeds in this sequel to his bestseller The Making of Donald Trump, and reveals how the Trump administration—issue by issue, government department by government department—is dismantling government as we know it, Unfortunately, though, he dives too deep in the weeds for me.

I’m sure this is partially my fault. Johnston has a fine head for numbers, a gift I do not share, and, although he explains himself clearly, I find his occasional trips through The Donald in Mathmagic Land to be both exhaustive and exhausting. Left-brainers, though, will probably enjoy these parts more than I do. Besides, economics is what Johnston does best, and his chapters on taxes and tariffs are illuminating, arguably some of the best in the book.

But the problem with the book is greater than this. Although Johston’s subjects are well chosen, and his points well argued, he often includes too much material, either by presenting unnecessary background, belaboring an obvious point, or discoursing on a tangential matter better dealt with in a footnote. I read every page of Johnston’s book, but by the time I was halfway through, I was intermittently skimming.

Nonetheless, It’s Even Worse Than You Think is a conscientious and reliable piece of journalism which demonstrates that what I most fear is indeed true: beyond the daily buffooneries and brutalities of our chief executive, below the surface events and out of sight, our government agencies are being neutered, underfunded, the very mechanisms of governance halted, our national wealth gleefully ceded to the richest few.

I will conclude with two representative passages. (Each of which shows what David Cay Johnston can do well when he gets “deep in the weeds”.) The first passage presents a small eloquent example of what a good government grants, the kind of thing increasingly impossible in Trump’s America:

The American Association of the Advancement of Science gives an annual Golden Goose Award to encourage public understanding of basice research and how it can have big economic benefits. The 2016 Award honored scientists who spend years studying the sexual activity of the screwworm fly. Now, there’s an easy area of science for know-nothing politicians and pundits to mock, and many did. The research results got a lot less attention. The scientists learned how to eradicate the pests, which can otherwise kill an otherwise healthy cow in two weeks. Today the price of beef is about 5 percent lower than if the little parasites were still infesting the cattle herds.

The second passage has to do with the true meaning of Donald Trump’s phrase “drain the swamp”. It is an insight of Joel Clement, a former senior policy analyst at the Department of the Interior, once responsible for dealing with climate change and Native American displacement near the North Bering Sea. Trump issued an executive order cutting his budget to zero, and Clement soon found himself reassigned, disbursing oil and gas royalty checks for federal and tribal lands.

Clement says he and others misunderstood what Trump meant when he spoke of draining the swamp in Washington. “When they were talking about draining the swamp in Washington, we thought they were talking about lobbyists, but they meant civil servants . . . the civl servants were the swamp.

“When your entire workforce is described as the swamp, morale is done,” he said. “People are walking around feeling devalued, targeted, like a group of people with Stockholm Syndrome. Trump’s cabinet and high-level office nominartions demonstrate the desire to tear down the executive branch. They are making it impossible to implement the laws of Congress. Theyll be swimming in litigation. They won’t get much else done. They have tossed every guildeline from ethics to personnel management.

“When,” Clement asked, “will they be held accountable?”

[Lilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the first book I read about the imbecile who presently occupies the White House. And I, of course, also watch the daily news. So I had thought that I was rather well informed about the disaster that has been unfolding ever since this man has been voted into office.

However, while reading the above book, I almost continuously felt like screaming: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think! It’s Even Worse Than You Think! IT’s EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THINK!!!”

I found this thoroughly researched and well documented book a bit exhausting to read, for the simple reason that it gives an abundance of information without the entertaining factor of juicy stories and rumors as provided in the bestseller “Fire and Fury” or the sarcasm and gallows humor found in the (btw, highly recommendable) book “Everything Trump Touches Dies”, by Republican (!) strategist Rick Wilson.

For anyone who wants to get the most reliable and extensive information about what has been happening to our country, “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” is the book to read.

If you think that you simply can’t stomach another non-fiction horror book telling about Trump and his frequently changing minions, please do me and yourself the favor to check out this book from the library and read, at least, the last chapter, titled “The Con Unravels”.

So what can we all do to help America (and our whole planet) survive this disastrous presidency?

First of all, we must stay informed. We cannot allow ourselves to stick our heads into the sand as ostriches do. So please keep watching the news, even if it causes you indigestion to see this man on tv spitting lies, insulting decent people, talking gibberish, and adulating himself.

Most importantly, WE ALL MUST GO OUT AND VOTE. We also have to take great effort to get our like-minded but possibly sluggish neighbors, co-workers, friends, and relatives to go out and vote. We cannot miss out on a single vote.

And we have to try to open the eyes of undecided voters. (Trying to open the eyes of Trump supporters only makes sense when these have a certain level of intelligence.)

Beyond this, some of us can donate time and/or money to support a candidate who has a chance to defeat Trump in 2020.

And there are other ways to help get Trump voted out of office and Make America Great Again. Some of us can get active in local politics. Some of us can participate in peaceful demonstrations.

Each of us must do what he or she can do best. David Cay Johnston did what he could do best. He wrote eye-opening books, as, for instance, the above.

[Melki]

This seems to be the book we should be reading instead of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

8/30/2024 addendum: I wrote this review back in February 2018. Simpler times. Pre-Covid. Pre-January 6. Reading this, I'm struck by how prophetic I was, but let's be honest: the writing was on the wall. January 6 just seemed inevitable...

I, like many Americans, wake up every morning dreading what new Hell is in store for us and the world thanks to the Dumpster Fire that currently sits in the Oval Office as our commander-in-chief. That Trump is a liar, a tax cheat, a douchebag, an asshole, a narcissist, a compassionless moron, a seven-year-old wearing old men’s clothes, a sack of shit, a mouth-breather, a racist, a misogynist, a potential sociopath, quite possibly mentally ill, and a fuckwad isn’t really in dispute. Hell, even his supporters think most of this is true. They just don’t care, for some reason, because “Hey, Trump got a lot of people $200 bonuses” and “Well, because her e-mails...”

Today, Trump announced that he wants to have a giant military parade through Washington, D.C. Never mind the ridiculous cost in money, time, and security this will cost taxpayers: Trump supporters don’t seem to care. They’ve let the millions we---the taxpayers---have already spent on his golf weekends and vacations and Secret Service manpower it involved slide, so why the fuck not have a military parade? North Korea, China, and Russia do it all the time, and those are three of his favorite countries, so there’s that...

The question has stopped being “When is enough enough?” because we have all, sadly, discovered the answer to that, which is, “Never”. Trump is apparently going to ride this all the way through to its inevitable end of dictatorial totalitarianism, and his supporters are along for the ride. Mark my word, if there isn’t a violent uprising in the next year or two, Trump will have concentration camps set up all across the country, run by Joe Arpaio. It’s there he will send all the CNN, MSNBC, and New York Times journalists. He’ll also send every single late-night TV talk show host there (except for Jimmy Fallon: Trump likes when Fallon rubs his hair.), including the entire cast of Saturday Night Live (Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy will, of course, be at the head of the line). Then he’ll go after everybody who has ever said a mean word about him on Facebook and Twitter. Then, of course, he’ll go after everybody who has ever written a book about him that isn’t Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter. (Granted, he will have to go on the word of people who have actually read the books, because Trump doesn’t read...)

One of those authors is David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author of seven books whose latest book “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America” pretty much says it all in the title.

Johnston’s book is probably the book everyone should be reading instead of Michael Wolf’s “Fire and Fury” but isn’t because there are no sex scenes. Don’t get me wrong: I look forward to reading Wolf’s book. I have it on hold at my local library (I’m not dishing out $15 at Target for that piece of shit), but I couldn’t wait. In the wait time, I’ve discovered other scathing anti-Trump books out there.

Johnston’s book may be relatively golden shower-free, but it’s still pretty damn riveting, if you like a shitload of facts and data and statements that can actually be supported by lots of evidence. The nearly 30 pages of endnotes is impressive in itself, but it’s also impressive that Johnston got all of his information by simply digging deeper into the morass of bullshit surrounding Trump and his lackeys. If anyone is “draining the swamp”, it’s actually Johnston.

Johnston covers everything in the (my God has it only been) one year that Trump has been President, which is actually a hell of a lot. Some of it---especially the transcripts, speeches, and memos that Johnston was privy to that never made it into mainstream media outlets or to the public at all---is both horribly frightening and strangely hilarious at the same time. Case in point: Trump’s conversation with Mexican President Enrique Peno Nieto, the full transcript of which was obtained and published by the Washington Post several months later: (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphi...), in which Trump whined, “If you’re not going to say that Mexico is going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that.” So much for the Great Negotiator.

There’s also Trump’s history of basic science denial and his commitment to considering global warming a “Chinese hoax”: it would almost be funny if Trump’s EPA, under Scott Pruitt, hasn’t overturned nearly eight years of policy under Obama---including exiting the Paris Agreement---that was moving in the right direction. Trump’s choice of Pruitt to run the EPA was a direct slap in the face to environmentalists and scientists. It may even be causing needless deaths.

Recently, a study was released that showed an unprecedented increase in black lung disease cases among coal miners in Appalachian states. While more studies need to be done, it strongly suggests a connection between Pruitt’s EPA’s attempts to roll back and eliminate regulations on industries such as coal mining and coal mining-related disease and death. (https://www.npr.org/2018/02/06/583456...)

I could give more examples, but frankly I’m sick and tired of Trump. I’m sick and tired of everything about him, his family, his wealth, his wormy ability to get out of paying taxes, his brilliant ability to manipulate and maneuver people’s attentions away from the real problems facing this country by creating non-issues, his child-like inability to hear or accept anything critical or negative about himself by claiming that anything he disagrees with is “fake news”, his supporters, his hair, his orange face, his tiny hands, his tiny dick, and his stupid brain.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just when you thought you couldn't feel any worse about the direction the United States is taking, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston delivers a hard and deeply reported dose of reality. Looking beyond the daily sideshow of presidential tweets and racist dog whistles, Johnston takes us into the agencies where Donald Trump's army of "termites" is hollowing out the federal government, and quietly instituting policies that will make the vast majority of Americans poorer, sicker and less well educated, and leave the nation less influential and competitive internationally.

Johnston lays bare the false promises Trump made in his campaign, and continues to make, while his administration systematically enriches billionaires -- including members of his cabinet -- and huge corporations and billionaires at the expense of Americans' health, careers, education and financial security.

In public policy, details matter, and from the EPA to the VA, Johnston provides details of intentional mismanagement, blatant self-dealing, direct corporate welfare, and willful ignorance that will, and should, infuriate anyone who doesn't keep their assets in an overseas tax haven, or their children in an exclusive private school. If you ever found Donald Trump's volatility and outspokenness even a little bit refreshing or amusing, if you thought he might be just the uninhibited outsider to drain the swamp of Washington politics, reading "It's Even Worse Than You Think" will make you realize how destructive and terrifying this presidency really is.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of the books I've read about Donald Trump focus squarely on the man himself, his relations with the people surrounding him in the White House, and his outrageous behavior. David Cay Johnston's book is somewhat different. Trump's erratic actions and insults are acknowledged throughout. He is unquestionably the star of the story. But It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America spotlights the policies Trump has promoted and the people he's named to senior positions in government.  The picture is devastating. As Johnston notes at the outset, "the Trump presidency is unlike anything that came before, a presidency built on open public contempt for Constitutional principles."

Item: kleptocracy is the new normal
In a blatant violation of the law and the US Constitution, Trump is brazenly promoting his own businesses, most notably the Trump International Hotel in Washington and Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He is personally raking in many millions of dollars as a result. (Johnston's detailed description about how the scheme works is eye-opening.) And Trump is not alone in self-dealing. Key appointees are promoting the industries and the individual companies where they previously worked, and in some cases they're directly profiting from the policies they promulgate or the regulations they eliminate. Others, including at least one billionaire, are routinely traveling on the government's dime although their predecessors carefully paid for their own travel when on personal business.

Donald Trump frequently spoke about "draining the swamp" in his campaign. As one former official put it, "we thought they were talking about lobbyists, but they meant civil servants . . . the civil servants were the swamp." Instead, Trump has appointed industry allies, including many lobbyists, to run the agencies they have sued, lobbied, or otherwise weakened in the past. And the damage they are doing is little reported in the news media. I'll cite just two examples.

Item: Trump's "political termites" are undermining our government
Trump is attempting to defund a long list of government agencies, including not just such long-time Republican candidates for oblivion such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting but less-well-known agencies including the Trade and Development Agency (TDA). The TDA encourages exports of high-value American goods and assists domestic companies that require assistance to operate successfully overseas, thus helping create jobs for American workers; its elimination would run counter to Trump's repeated insistence that he will create "job growth the likes of which our country has not seen in a very long time." (That's just one of many ways in which the Trump Administration is discouraging rather than encouraging job growth, a subject to which Johnston devotes a chapter of its own.) To ensure that these agencies are crippled even if Congress declines to defund them, Trump has appointed men and women like Betsy DeVos, Scott Pruitt, Rex Tillerson, and others with lower profiles who will make it difficult or impossible for their employees to perform their duties effectively. And they're doing a very good job of that—by failing to appoint the high-level officials needed to approve their work, by instituting policies and procedures designed to frustrate them, or simply by creating an environment within the agency that discourages aggressive action on behalf of the public.

Item: Trump's "forgotten man" is forgotten by his Administration
On the campaign trail, in his inaugural address, and in myriad ways since, Donald Trump has continued to emphasize that he is in office to protect the "forgotten man." He continually proclaims his concern for workers. But the actions he and his appointees have taken, and insist they will continue taking, are anything but supportive of middle-class working families. (Poor people are not just forgotten—they're not even mentioned among the forgotten.)

For example, by moving to emasculate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Trump Administration is subjecting millions of us once again to the unrestrained predations of predatory lenders. By eliminating environmental regulations, they are exposing us all to foul air and polluted water and eroding one of our country's proudest accomplishments, our National Parks. By opening up our coastal waters for oil and gas exploration, they are endangering the livelihood and the quality of life of millions of Americans who live near the shore. By eviscerating OSHA, they are ensuring that "'workers will pay the price for rolling back these hard-earned protections—in injury, illness, and death,'" in the words of one critic quoted by Johnston. And "[s]pending less on scientific research is not a policy to make or keep America great and it certainly is not a policy to put American workers first." As Johnston notes, "research shows that at least half of American economic growth since World War II stems from advances in science and technology"—and a disproportionate share of those advances have come from government labs or work financed by government grants.

The damage will last for decades
Yes, even if you faithfully follow the political news, you may conclude, as I did, that "it's even worse than you think." It's profoundly disturbing to read, chapter after chapter, the evidence of the damage Donald Trump and his appointees has already done to our country. Johnston ranges far afield, detailing the devastation at State, Education, the EPA, the VA, and other critical agencies. Even if Trump is forced out of office before his term is up, or the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress in the 2018 election and the presidency in 2020, cleaning up the mess may take decades. Simply recruiting and training replacements for all the experienced foreign service officers, scientists, and regulators fired or forced to resign will take many years. Restoring the morale of the departments they led won't be easy, either. Nor will the tedious work of recovering or rewriting the hard-fought regulations that protected our health and our financial wellbeing. And who knows how long the Federal courts will remain under the sway of Neil Gorsuch and like-minded "strict constructionists?" (Johnston's portrait of Gorsuch is unflattering to say the least. Yes, the newest Supreme Court Justice is even worse than I thought.)

David Cay Johnston is an investigative reporter specializing in economic and tax issues, to which he gives a great deal of attention in It's Even Worse Than You Think. He has won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting and is the author of six previous nonfiction books.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much self-promotion and unfortunately things have worsened considerably in the months since it was published.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've enjoyed this author's previous works of investigative reporting and thought this might be the smart choice in the pile of Trump books, but I was disappointed. True, Trump is even worse than I thought, but so what? I already thought he was a shameless crook. It's not like we get to vote on a scale of 1-10. Maybe we ought to, but we don't.
Johnston's conclusion is that Trump is the symptom, not the disease. I agree, but then what we need is a book about the disease, i.e. what made millions of Americans vote for such a worthless, lying, giant bipedal turd. I recommend:

[Lis Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Cay Johnston is a working journalist who has covered Donald Trump for decades, and has written two previous books about him. In this book, he looks not at Trump's personal life and all the possible, ah, colorful details, which at this writing are much in the news, but strictly at his actions as President, and his business dealings that explain and illuminate those actions.

This is very much a fact-based book, examining what Trump has actually done, and the practical effects, as well as the direct contrast between Trump's specific and oft-repeated campaign promises to help, for instance, students struggling under student loans or workers who aren't finding jobs because companies have moved those jobs overseas, or to help small businesses, and what his policies really are. Trump has appointed Betsy DeVos to head the Dept. of Education. She has no real education experience, but is deeply involved in for-profit education companies. Under Trump and DeVos, President Obama's progress toward protecting students from predatory loan practices by for-profit schools are being reversed, not improved. This is just one easily summarized example. To fully understand this example and others, Johnston's careful detailing of the actions, their background, and their effects are necessary.

He lays out Trump's many conflicts of interest, and the extent to which Trump's approach to the Presidency is truly different not just from our most respected Presidents, but even from the ones we've considered incompetent or corrupt. We see how tangled, contradictory, and profoundly unhelpful his immigration actions and policies are to the American workers he has promised he will help with those immigration policies are. Again, another example, one better understood with Johnston's detail and context than in a short review.

This is an important book. It is fact-based, not ideology-driven. You will learn by reading or listening to it.

Highly recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

[Fred Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Trump lacks the emotional stability, knowledge, critical-thinking skills, and judgment to be commander in chief. Emotionally he remains the thirteen-year-old troublemaker his father sent off to a military academy .... Being stuck in the awkward year between childhood and maturity for nearly six decades is a terrible fate, one that has twisted Trump's personality and explains much of his narcissism, immature attitudes about women, disregard for others, and his imagined intellectual gifts shown by his frequent declaration that 'I'm like a smart person.'" (page 253)

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House was a fun book to read. It provided anecdotes that demonstrated how unfit Trump is for the presidency, what a buffoon, what a joke, and how dysfunctional his administration is.

Mr. Johnston's book is not amusing. It is not fun to read. It lays out plainly that, while we are slapping our heads at what a buffoon this a--hole is, he is actually doing real damage to our country through his incredible combination of greed, incompetence, and -- yes -- racism. (If you are not ready to admit that Trump is a racist, you are willfully blind.)

The damage that this evil narcissist is doing to our country and how we are perceived abroad may take many years to fix, if they can be fixed. This book shows you what that damage is. And it's not funny.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very well written catalog of the damage that the current administration is doing to our country. I consider myself reasonable well informed; I read the Washington Post and New York Times daily, as well as following links from Twitter posts to the Atlantic, the New Yorker and other on-line news aggregators. Even after all that reading Johnston has uncovered things that I didn't know about before reading this book. It's well worth the time I spent on it, and I'll be reading more of Johnston's work.

[kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and well written. Not politically slanted.
Read Fire and Fury to understand the personalities at work and this one for the policies.

[Anika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have yet to read a book on Trump and/or his administration that doesn't make me think "But how is any of this even possible"? Lastly, with Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, this question was mainly focussed on the acting persons and their, uh, sort of working relationships with each other; within this book, the question is directed more towards the politics of said administration.

Basically, Johnston compares Trump's plans and promises during his campaign to what happened after he got elected and during the first months of his term. The book is well structured and tackles pretty much every issue, from jobs, taxes, climate denial, global affairs, education, law and order, to race, guns and immigration. Johnston reminds the reader what Trump said about these topics during his campaigns, the plans he had, the promises he made - and what's left of all of that after the first months of his administration (a non spoilerish spoiler: pretty much nothing). Of course most of this is known, there have been many examples I remember, thinking "But how and why does he get away with it?". Seeing all these issues combined makes an even more powerful impact. It's scary. And makes me wonder even more.

People who voted for Trump based on a certain promise should read this book and use it for a serious reality check. I'm thinking about, for example, all those veterans who'd hoped to get better medical care, more support, less bureaucracy and a 24-hour-emergency-support-hotline supervised by Trump himself (a non spoilerish spoiler: nothing of this happened). There are countless other groups like those veterans who should feel fooled by now - and still, I wonder how Trump and his administration get away with all of this. And if all these broken promises and their mostly, well, not really helpful results aren't enough, Johnston also chronicals how Trump and the Alt-Right grow closer. And this should be the final sign to get everybody's alarm bells ringing. Again, I know, all of this is known. But it doesn't hurt one bit to be reminded of it again and again.

Extra mention for the very powerful afterword, which makes a great closing argument. In general, Johnston does take this book on a certain emotional level - his helplessness and anger shine through (and I hear him!) - yet the book is still factual and an unbiased read (because facts are facts, there is no alternative version). However, the book lives from its all overshadowing conclusion: Trump is by no means fit for the job, way less than any president before him. And Johnston does a really good job showing why.

[Dick Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has been a long time observer of Donald Trump so he brings to this book a rich background of facts about our president long before he was elected.
He covers a multitude of subjects such as “The Wall” that Trump has been talking about for some time. If this wall is ever built, you can rest assured that the U. S. will be paying for it and not Mexico. Our State Department is woefully understaffed and Trump seems to be in no hurry to replace those who have departed. In Trump’s view, nobody would be able to conduct diplomatic activities better than himself. Our Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is putting the interests of bankers ahead of students and their families. Scott Pruitt, the fellow who is head of the EPA and the lawyer who has been trying to destroy the agency he now heads, is rolling back all the regulations intended to keep our planet’s air and water free of pollution.
What about our infrastructure? Trump made a major point during his campaign about devoting great attention and money to our crumbling infrastructure, promising a comprehensive plan immediately after his inauguration. However, such a plan has not yet appeared.
The Defense Department is clearly that part of the Federal Government receiving the largest increase in its budget. It seems rather ironic that our military will be defending a country that, in the long run, will no longer be as well off as it is today.
Reading this relevant book was riveting but, after a couple of chapters, I found it depressing and had to put it aside for another day. I continued in this start-stop fashion until I eventually finished it. I hope that the coming mid-term elections will change the composition of our Congress so that this national self-defeating trend can be reversed.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Cay Johnston is a journalist of many years and the author of The Making Of Donald Trump. He doesn’t share new information that hasn’t been widely told elsewhere. What Johnston has is the ability to communicate in clear language what the trouble with President Trump is and tells us in no uncertain terms that we are in trouble. While he offers some advice, he doesn’t mince words, it is worse than we think and might have to run its course before it he’s better. Scary. Johnston also has deep knowledge of Trump as a person and public figure because of his previous book about him. Scary.

[Jacqueline Kawate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book written so far on the Trump administration. It is everything that Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury book is not. This book is short on gossip and heavy on fact. It details how Trump and his Cabinet members have acted during his Presidency. It focuses on what they do rather than what they say. Most frightening to me is the long lasting damage that is being done, especially in the judiciary, the EPA, the Department of Education, health care, and the State Department. The actions taken by this administration will not only lower our quality of life, it will cost lives. The author is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist who has been reporting on Trump for 30 years. He is also an expert on tax policy.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing super-new in here, if you’ve been watching the news. It focuses on the Trump Administration’s ineptitude/malfeasance when it comes to staffing government positions, undermining governmental norms, etc. It’s well-researched.

The author, however, has a somewhat patronizing, let-me-explain-this-to-you-so-you’ll-understand it style that rubbed me the wrong way and ultimately made the book a tedious experience for me.

I would NOT want to sit next to this guy on a long plane flight.

[Owlseyes]

For years David Cay Johnson believed in the Russian collusion...how about now?

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost returned this book to the library without reading it once I realized the author also wrote "The Making of Donald Trump," which was a short book that turned into a long haul of a read due to the author's unwillingness to stay out of the narrative, inability to appear unbiased (I get it, Trump threatened to sue him), and the oddness of the book's structure and narrative. I decided to give this book a chance because it looked meatier than the other David Cay Johnston book I had read and there were almost 30 pages of "Notes" or citations of sources.

I'm glad that I did. The author thoroughly covered most of the highlights (or lowlights. depending on your views) of Donald Trump's first year in the White House. David Cay Johnston methodically broke down Trump's campaign promises to reveal how he did or did not live up to the words he used to garner the votes of the "Forgotten Americans." I appreciated his efforts to make complex topics (e.g., economics, trade, diplomacy) easily accessible to the average person without advanced studies in these areas of government administration.

I was surprised by the writing itself though. I expected better sentence structure and copy/line edits in a book written by a Pulitzer Prize winner and published by such a reputable publisher as Simon & Schuster. Spell check only catches words that are misspelled - not when you correctly spell "murders" but meant to write "murderers," which happened two or three times that I can easily recall. There were extra words in sentences that made them awkward to read or downright incomprehensible. The author's insistence on injecting himself into the narrative (although not nearly as often as in "The Making of Donald Trump") was jarring from the narrative and didn't help the author's credibility.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to believe, but this is essentially outdated already. Things have gotten exponentially worse, exponentially quickly.

[L. McCoy · Rating 2 out of 5]

WARNING: DUE TO THE NATURE OF THIS BOOK THE FOLLOWING REVIEW IS VERY POLITICAL, FOR ANY OF MY FOLLOWERS WHO DON’T LIKE THAT DON’T READ THIS REVIEW OR THE BOOK.
MY REVIEW MAY POSSIBLY TRIGGER BOTH CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS ALIKE...

(Sigh)... I tried. I fucking tried.

What’s it about?
Basically it’s this author’s thoughts on why Trump is dangerous and harmful to America, even more than previous presidents.

Pros:
So I often find nonfiction writing a bit too dry, I didn’t feel that way here. It goes over a lot of subjects so it doesn’t feel like it’s just one giant rant about the same thing for hours, I greatly appreciate that.
There are a few mildly humorous bits of comical snark.
There are some interesting arguments that definitely will make most readers think...

Cons:
...unfortunately even the majority of the interesting arguments here are quickly destroyed by the book’s biased twisting of EVERYTHING. I understand that everyone has their own degree of bias and their personal opinion will be in anything like this but this book is ridiculous about how frequent things are twisted and/or even just things you could say about any politician or businessman (example: Trump being narcissistic or making some things up here and there) which Trump is both so...
There are quite a few things in this book that are just straight up false. An example of a particularly ridiculous false statement that almost everyone would agree is stupid is when the author criticizes Trump for referring to ISIS as “ISIS” instead of “ISIL”... like... really? The terrorists themselves and agencies that deal with them say ISIS but Trump using their actual name is somehow ammo for criticism? Stuff like that and other false statements found here make it very hard to take this book as a whole seriously TBH.
There’s some stuff here that seems kinda stupid or irrelevant to the grand scheme of things. The example I’ll use here since I noticed it multiple times is how it’s bad that Trump and his supporters don’t like various late night “comedy” shows (which as someone who doesn’t like and frequently criticizes both the left and right wing, I can only think of 3 of these late night “comedy” shows that are actually funny, most of them are cringeworthy “boomer” humor with the same fuckin’ punchline every night... and even many liberals I’ve talked to agree with that).
The author takes a few opportunities to advertise his other books which is kinda annoying. Like a brief mention would be fine but multiple sentences at a time just made me think “dude, I wanna hear your thoughts on stuff in THIS book, that’s why I’m here.”
This book gets more boring as it goes on.
The author’s constant use of the term “Trumpian” is annoying and honestly kinda stupid. Like, if I’m not mistaken part of the point with these books is to try making Trump supporters think about the opposite point of view and maybe open their minds a little so using a biased slang term that’s specifically made to mock Trump and arguably even his supporters seems like a very poor way to do that and looks more like “I’m so clever and edgy using the guy I’m criticizing’s name as a negative adjective”.
The narrator of the audio edition is terrible. I’m normally not harsh towards them but it’s exceptionally awful narration here. It sounded like an angry guy who’s out of breath doing a shitty impersonation of Woodhouse (referring to the Archer character).

Overall:
I mentioned this earlier in my review and my followers already know this, I’m not liberal or conservative. I even registered as independent because I feel A LOT of anger towards both major political parties.
As far as 2020’s candidates go, I’m not a huge fan of Trump myself but don’t think he’s terrible (hell there’s some stuff about him I like) and do consider him better than Biden or Sanders so will probably be stuck voting for him. To use a kinda gross metaphor I’ll say this: let’s imagine there’s 2 bags in front of me and I have to eat whatever’s in the bag I choose. One bag has a chance of there being a shit sandwich inside but the other bag straight up says “there’s a shit sandwich in here”. I would have to go with the bag that may or may not have one and Trump looks kinda like that bag. Unfortunately this book did not convince me otherwise.
A more accurate title instead of “It’s Worse Than You Think” would probably be “Eh, It’s About What Ya Expect”. I listened to this over 3 nights, at the end of the first night this book seemed okay IMO but got much worse as it went on to the point it mostly just dodged a 1-star rating.
Despite engaging writing, a couple of chuckles and a few decent points it is still a very biased, mostly inaccurate book of arguments that are twisted to fit a narrative at best, flat out lies at worst.
I will say that this book did make me wonder if I should change my mind on one thing... reading political nonfiction for 2020 may be a bad idea (though I’m still gonna try a couple more before giving up I think).

2/5

[Ella Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fact that a person such as Donald trump has a cult like following that managed to elect him as the leader of our nation is a testament to the depressing ignorance and gullibility of the American people.

Coconut tree all the way

[Mary Sisney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because he's a money man, Johnston's discussion of Trump's business deals, his taxes, the cost to taxpayers of his trips to his own properties, and the effects of his budget proposals on ordinary Americans is most informative. His "fact check" of what's really happening with veterans under the Trump administration is also very interesting. However, he's less sure of himself when discussing racism. A chapter on Charlottesville begins promisingly with a too brief discussion of "white privilege" but then quickly morphs into a discussion of guns, proving that even white liberals hate to talk or write about race/racism. Still, I appreciated the information about the crazy black man who kept popping up on camera at Trump rallies. Maurice, aka Michael the Black Man, was part of a brutal cult that tortured and mutilated people. He was determined to be too crazy to prosecute during his trial. I guess crazy Maurice found a new brutal, sadistic cult to join and an even crazier leader to follow.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is pretty self expanatory, and while it is NOT worse that I personally think (I have my eyes open and I see what is happening to our country) I am sure there are many things in this book that would surprise those that try to stay out of politics, those that think what is happening in Washington DC really doesn't affect them, and of course those that support Trump will probably just say this is all "fake news". I prefer to stay educated, to be aware of what is happening, and to be part of the resistance that will keep speaking out, and will work to make sure this administration is voted out of office if they are not removed and convicted by the special council first.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It's Even Worse Than You Think" is an intriguing examination of the first 100 days of Trump's presidency and the differences between his and past presidencies, as well as the potential consequences of these changes. This is a well-researched book which was interesting to go through. It seemed more informative than other books about the Trump presidency, going deeper into institutions and other differences that are less obvious. Please note that I received a copy of this book through a giveaway. All opinions are my own.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh yes. This is the book that captures the triage unit in which we are currently living. The selfishness, the self absorption, the ego, the money. If you thought things were going badly - then read this. Yes. It is even worse than you think.

This book nails down how Trump's business interests have colonized the presidency. Yep we are are in trouble. What happens when real estate capitalism takes over other modalities of power? Here we go ...

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well researched and reasoned argument about why the Trump autocratic Presidency is, indeed, even worse than most of us think. Even if you can’t read the whole book, just the final chapter entitled “Con Man” will summarize why we should be mightily concerned about America’s (and our global neighbors’) future. I need to read something light and sunny now to decompress!

[Dianelys · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave it 5 stars not based on the writing style, but the important and brutal honesty message of the book. Every person who wants to see this country survive and be better should read this book.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-researched and easy-to-read volume that sets forth what the Trump Administration has been doing to America - making it worse, not great - since Trump was sworn into office in January 2017. It's a frightening, thought-provoking book which presents the results of research, freedom of information requests, and investigative reporting into many of Trump's "initiatives" and those of his Cabinet appointees. When you thought it couldn't get any worse, it does get worse. Most citizens are distracted by the never-ending melodrama of Trump's erratic tweets, the revolving door of WH employees, Trump lawyers, and the latest scandal. This book is similar to a series of Voice investigative reports - with the Trump "disgrace" as the pivot point connecting the stories. This is a valuable addition to the ever-growing volume of books dealing with the political nightmare known as Donald J. Trump. It explains how Trump is actually reneging on most of his promises, which were empty, deceptive rhetoric to begin with, but that unfortunately our Constitution has no way to deal with a Donald Trump - a man who manipulated the political system to gain power, and once he gained power, is doing all he can to subvert what the Republic was established for in the first place - to benefit the people, not to enrich Donald J. Trump. It somehow reminds me of an election with a an amoral terrorist running - who uses the tools of democracy to gain power, and then once in power, declares democracy dead, or kills it off little by little, and assumes dictatorial power - in effect manipulating democracy in order to subvert and ultimately demolish the democratic system of government. I agree with the author (David Cay Johnston) that even after Trump leaves office, the damage done to our democracy probably will not be repaired in my lifetime.

The quotes:

"[Trump]... conned thousands of people desperate to learn what Trump said were the secrets of his success into paying up to $35,000 to attend Trump University."

"In 2012 the average income that the bottom 90 percent reported on tax returns was slightly less, after inflation, than what the same demographic reported in 1967."

"Average room rates at Trump hotels fell during much of 2016, but right after the election rates soared 20 percent."

"Trump...previously faked accounting records, filed at least two fraudulent income tax returns, and made false claims to escape property tax bills."

"During the transition, Trump doubled the fee to become a Mar-a-Lago member to $200,000..."

"[According to a lobbyist]... senior [White House] staff hang out in the lobby bar at the [Trump Washington] hotel. They are seeing who spends time and money there and who books large parties there and large blocks of rooms for delegations."

"The emoluments issues may seem abstract - a word the president's lawyers invoke - but they go to the very nature of the United States of America and whether we are a nation of laws or of people, whether elected office is for public service or it permits profiteering."

"...anything short of a flat-out bribe is legal, just so long as the transaction is run though one of the more than five hundred companies owned by the president. That is the official line at the United States Justice Department."

"...foreign influence ... requires vigilance by the citizenry or the United States government will be up for sale."

"As president, [Donald Trump] ... did not change his long history of refusing to pay contractors, fighting tax bills, and using two sets of wildly different estimates of the value of his properties."

"[Trump's financial disclosure] ... form showed that Trump was worth nowhere near what he claimed in the campaign when within days he said $8 billion, $7 billion, $10 billion, more than $10 billion, and once $11 billion. The form showed $1.4 billion."

"Months after he became president [Trump] ... still owed millions to contactors on the Old Post conversion into the Trump Washington hotel."

"...this tactic of refusing to pay in full, and sometimes refusing to pay at all, has been a constant throughout Trump's life, involving him in hundreds of lawsuits accusing him of nonpayment."

"Trump's volatile emotions often drive his decisions. So does whatever he heard from the last person he spoke to."

"Walter Shaub quit as director of the Office of Government Ethics after a series of clashes with the administration, which wanted to keep financial matters of its appointees hush-hush, waivers granted so people who owned stocks in companies they would be regulating could keep their shares, and other policies that Shaub considered offensive to honest and open government."

"Among the many ways that businesses seek to angle the playing field in their favor are campaign donations, jobs for the friends and family of office holders, and handing out favors like travel on corporate jets to those who make or influence the rules."

"Trump has attacked renewable energy again and again."

"...other Trump administration actions inimical to worker safety... [include] no longer posting press releases about deaths resulting from unsafe working conditions, delaying rules to reduce sickness and death from inhaling silica and beryllium at work, delaying rules to lower the risk of railroad engineers and truck drivers falling asleep at the switch or wheel because of untreated sleep apnea, and the appointment to the Supreme Court of a judge who held that a company had the right to fire a worker who chose not to freeze to death on the job."

"Removal of data on workplace deaths, which average thirteen per day..."

"...Jordan Barab, who was Obama's No. 2 at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ... summed up these and other Trump actions this way: "This is not a pro-worker administration, and workers will pay the price for rolling back these hard-earned protections -- in injury, illness, and death."

"Many ... Trump administration actions put downward pressure on wages."

"Trump's short attention span, combined with his lack of knowledge about world history and events, clouds his actions in Washington."

"Public records reveal that [Trump] ... is an income tax cheat."

"Only after the election would [Trump] ... reveal that his net worth was less than $2 billion and even that figure was likely significantly inflated."

"For 90 percent of taxpayers, average income had been flat from 1967 through 2012. During the first eight years of the twenty-first century, the population grew five times faster than jobs. These two factors combined into a powerful incentive for many to vote Trump."

"Taxes at all levels are the single largest part of the American economy, more than a quarter of all economic activity."

"Taxes don't have to be as complicated as health care, the second largest part of the American economy."

"All costs... must be accounted for on the universal ledger. Someone pays, because all costs, as well as benefits must be accounted for somewhere, somehow. There is no free lunch, especially not for a society that lets polluters have their way with our air and water."

"Canned email responses that avoid the core question, or anodyne answers that say nothing instead of giving details and policy positions, have become the new EPA standard under Administrator Scott Pruitt."

"If pollution is discussed in terms of sickening and killing people for profit, public opinion will sway in the direction of requiring companies to clean up after their operations rather than dumping toxins into the air and water."

"...Pruitt had exchanged more than three thousand emails with oil companies, industry groups, affiliates of the Koch brothers, and others from the fossil fuel industries."

"Those emails, released after Pruitt was sworn in, show that he worked hand in glove with fossil fuel companies as Oklahoma attorney general."

"Donald Trump's political appointees ... went after scientists who worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Commerce Department run by Secretary Wilbur Ross, at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and at the Interior Department."

"Cutting spending on scientific research runs directly counter to Trump's claim that he will create a robust economy with growth rates unseen in decades."

"...during a telephone call with the prime minister of Australia, Trump described himself as "the world's greatest person""

"...rather than draining the swamp, Trump was turning America's capital into a lucrative paradise for the greediest predators on Wall Street and their clients."

"As secretary of state, Clinton had a nuanced and deep understanding of the complexities of the Middle East and how all the governments there in some way support terrorists."

"China, roughly the same geographic size as the United States, was lacing its cities together with high-speed railroads while America's trains run late and rough on tracks beaten down by freight trains."

"...Trump's long and documented history of discriminating against blacks in renting apartments and in employment at his casinos."

"In the past decade, the wealth gap between whites and blacks has gone from seven- to thirteen-fold. The median net worth of a single-parent white family is twice that of the two-parent black family."

"...the Trump kakistocracy in which the worst among us, especially the utterly unqualified and ignorant, hold high positions in the federal government."

"The stock price rise suggested that speculators were betting not on a boom in profitable business, but on the Trump administration improving the business climate for the company."

"By pardoning Arpaio, Trump signaled those who might turn against him to avoid long prison terms for their own crimes[,] that so long as they are with Trump, so long as he trusts in their loyalty to him, he wants them to think they are safe."

"Not many people go so far as to support the Ku Klux Klan, at Trump's father, Fred, was doing in 1927 when New York City police arrested him during a violent demonstration."

"While founded as an association of sportsmen, the NRA has become the slavish handmaiden of gun manufacturers. Its success has created a nation that in 2009 counted 315 million guns in private hands, more than one per person."

"As president, [Trump] ... used his power to ensure that about 75,000 people so mentally ill that they are not allowed control over their finances could easily buy guns."

"...the Framers of the Constitution...lived in an era of single-shot long rifles owned by a mostly rural population, could not have contemplated city streets where packs of men flaunt military-style AR-15 rifles designed only for rapid killing..."

"...the Republican Party...has worked ever since Nixon to persuade people that GOP policies that hurt nonwhite Americans aren't' racist but instead are grounded in Constitutional principles and pro-growth economics."

"...the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania... [is] the school Trump claims he attended when he went only to its undergraduate program in real-estate economics."

"Kent Smetters, ... Wharton business professor... said, "as younger members of the workforce, immigrants also help pay for Social Security and Medicare for the elderly."

"...the Saudis ...support the most violent faction of the Islamic religion and finance terrorists while Trump praises Riyadh for fighting against terrorism, unaware of how out of touch his words are."

"...the Trump campaign eagerly solicited the Kremlin's help to defeat Hillary Clinton, wanted to use Russian diplomatic links to secretly communicate with Moscow, and that Trump directly participated in lying and covering up that secret collaboration with a hostile foreign power."

"Those who turn the other cheek as Jesus Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount are fools, idiots, and losers, Trump has said many times. His philosophy is revenge and violence against others, decidedly anti-Christian attitudes that have not dissuaded many prominent television preachers from their enthusiastic endorsements of him as a "fine Christian family man.""

"Trump may be part of a larger global social force, a political tsunami of ear and rejection of the modern world and a nostalgic desire to go back to an imagined past of peace and simplicity."

"For almost three decades I have been pointing out that Trump creates his own reality, a point on which his other leading biographers agree."

"...I have documented how policies hardly anyone knew about take from the many in subtle ways and concentrate money in the pockets of the 32,000 or so Americans at the apex of the economic pyramid. Trump is among those beneficiaries of modern America's silent plutocratic system of redistribution upward..."

"Trump masterfully grasped the anxiety and fear among the economically oppressed who had been largely abandoned by the Democrats. His slogans showed his mastery of the art of persuasion."

"How can it be that millions of people do not see Trump for what he is -- a narcissistic, ill-informed, thieving old blowhard?"

"During the presidential campaign he denigrated John McCain's five years as a prisoner of war and later mocked Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose Army officer son was killed in Afghanistan."

"Later Trump denounced the people of Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria flattened the island, mocking how the island name is pronounced by locals..."

"His most extreme supporters, the neo-Nazis, call him "savior" in their online publications. Trump claims that mantle, tweeting as a candidate "I alone can solve" the problem of "radical Islamic terrorism."

"We live in a time when many people denigrate those who have worked to make the most of the opportunities of living in this country, not in terms of monetary rewards but of developing their character, intellect, and judgment."

"...political scientist Jason Johnson...notes that the Federalist Papers, the structured debate over whether America should adopt the Constitution, shows that the Framers "envisioned presidents who might be dishonest, who might not have consistent ethical values, but they never envisioned a self-involved dictatorial capitalist, so we don't have a government designed to restrain someone who doesn't care about any of the norms."

"[Trump] ... is emblematic of the tendency, magnified since the 1980s, to judge people by the content of their wallet, as if money had anything to do with character."

"...the idea that our United States of America is ... a creation of we the people for our benefit."

[Book2Dragon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is difficult to review a book in this year of politics, but necessary. This book was written about Donald Trump during the years of his first Presidency. It confirms many rumors that were flying about at that time, and adds some facts from research and interviews.

Government in a democracy is For The People. You might judge from this book if that Presidency was such and if the Constitution was protected. I will post some quotes in that GR section. There are 24 pages of Notes (ie., footnotes, ie., sources) at the end of the book.

I can't force you to read this book, but I think it is very important to every American that every American read this prior to November 5, 2024.