American Resistance: The Inside Story of How the Deep State Saved the Nation

White House officials’ struggle to restrain President Trump is saluted in this insightful study from podcast host Rothkopf (Traitor). Among numerous battles to “keep a dangerous, unhinged, ill-prepared president and his closest allies from doing irreparable damage,” Rothkopf documents Department of Homeland Security officials’ efforts to defang Trump’s ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries; Defense Secretary James Mattis’s success in talking Trump down during late-night phone calls in which he threatened such “wildly irresponsible actions” as an attack on North Korea; and Vice President Mike Pence’s certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. This is a saga of bureaucratic strategizing at its most byzantine, filled with evocative vignettes: “[Trump] didn’t know enough to know what to do to keep us from protecting the elections,” recalls a member of an informal election-security group. “It was just another thing he was pissed about, because it had some connection to Russia.” Rothkopf’s anti-Trump animus is not always fair, as when he blames Trump for right-wing vaccine skepticism, and his laudatory portrayal of Deep Staters doesn’t fully consider the role self-interest played in some of their actions. Still, this is one of the most revealing and disturbing accounts of Trump’s presidency yet published. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth, Aevitas Creative Management. (Nov.)