The culmination of nearly thirty years of reporting on Donald Trump, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston takes a revealingly close look at the mogul’s rise to power and prominence.
Covering the long arc of Trump’s career, Johnston tells the full story of how a boy from a quiet section of Queens, New York, would become an entirely new and complex breed of public figure. Trump is a man of great media savvy, entrepreneurial spirit, and political clout. Yet his career has been plagued by legal troubles and mounting controversy.
From the origins of his family’s real estate fortune to his own too-big-to-fail business empire; from his education and early career to his whirlwind presidential bid, The Making of Donald Trump provides the fullest picture yet of Trump’s extraordinary ascendency. Love him or hate him, Trump’s massive influence is undeniable, and figures as diverse as Woody Guthrie (who wrote a scathing song about Trump’s father) and Red Scare prosecutor Roy Cohn, mob bosses and high rollers, as well as the average American voter, have all been pulled into his orbit.
Drawing on decades of interviews, financial records, court documents, and public statements, David Cay Johnston, who has covered Trump more closely than any other journalist working today, gives us the most in-depth look yet at the man who would be president.
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”Allegations have recently been raised against GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump…It’s due in good measure to veteran investigative reporter Johnston…that these charges have seen the light of day. Here, without undue breathlessness and certainly without any coyness, he elaborates on those newsworthy sound bites…connecting dots and establishing patterns.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Johnston devastatingly covers ground he broke open as a reporter…The best of investigative reporting is brought to bear on a man who could potentially lead the free world.”
— USA Today“Mr. Johnston, who has followed the real estate impresario for nearly three decades, offers a searing indictment of his business practices and creative accounting.”
— New York Times“Johnston has done voters a service…He makes a compelling case that Trump has the attributes of both ‘dictator’ and ‘deceiver’ and would be a disaster in the Oval Office.”
— Financial Times (London)”A devastating attack….[Johnston] carefully disentangles the knot of lies that has so far characterised Trump’s presidential campaign.”
— Independent (London)”Carefully fleshes out the details of Trump’s known biography…with solid documentation.”
— Tampa Bay Times”Johnston…maintains a crisply matter-of-fact approach throughout this scrupulously detailed and documented chronicle.”
— BooklistBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, has hunted down a killer the police failed to catch, exposed LAPD abuses, caused two television stations to lose their licenses over news manipulations, and revealed Donald Trump’s true net worth. He has uncovered so many tax dodges that he has been called the “de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United States.” Four of his nonfiction works have made the New York Times bestsellers list, and Perfectly Legal was honored as Book of the Year by the journalism organization Investigative Reporters and Editors. Over his forty-year career he has won many other honors, including a George Polk Award. He has been a frequent guest on MSNBC, CNN, the BBC, ABC World News Tonight, Democracy Now!, and NPR’s Morning Edition, among other shows, and was a consultant for the Netflix series House of Cards.
Joe Barrett, an actor and Audie Award and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has appeared both on and off Broadway as well as in hundreds of radio and television commercials.