Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House

According to this savvy, entertaining insider%E2%80%99s memoir, the Trump administration is, as advertised, a snake pit of betrayal and backstabbing. Sims, the ex-director of White House message strategy, worked closely with President Trump and had access to behind-closed-doors political dramas and up-close views of Trump%E2%80%99s magnetic personality and not-always-rational preoccupations. (On his first day, Sims drafted a%E2%80%94patently untrue, he later learned%E2%80%94PR case asserting that Trump%E2%80%99s inaugural crowd was bigger than Obama%E2%80%99s.) He paints the West Wing as %E2%80%9CGame of Thrones, but with the characters from Veep,%E2%80%9D with staffers jockeying for status through disruptive leaks, undermining rumors, and poisonous accusations. Sims%E2%80%99s evangelical moral qualms left him fretting that he was %E2%80%9Cforfeit[ing] his own soul%E2%80%9D by participating in such intrigues, but he nonetheless revels in venomous sketches of rivals such as communications director Anthony Scaramucci (%E2%80%9Cdrunk on the attention and adulation%E2%80%9D), spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway (%E2%80%9Ca cartoon villain brought to life%E2%80%9D), and chief of staff John Kelly (%E2%80%9Cvindictive, unhinged,%E2%80%9D and %E2%80%9Cfully consumed by the darkness%E2%80%9D). Sims%E2%80%99s vivid portrait of Trump shrewdly balances admiration with misgivings, and his intricate, engrossing accounts of White House vendettas and power plays have a good mix of immersion and perspective. The result is one of the best of the recent flood of Trump tell-alls. Photos. (Jan.)