The Big Cheat, David Cay Johnston
The Big Cheat, David Cay Johnston
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Big Cheat
How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family

Author: David Cay Johnston

Narrator: Danny Campbell

Unabridged: 6 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/30/2021


Synopsis

Pulitzer Prize­–winning reporter and dean of Trumpologists David Cay Johnston reveals years of eye-popping financial misdeeds by Donald Trump and his family.

While the world watched Donald Trump’s presidency in horror or delight, few noticed that his lifelong grifting quietly continued. Less than forty minutes after taking the oath of office, Trump began turning the White House into a money machine for himself, his family, and his courtiers.

More than $1.7 billion flowed into Donald Trump’s bank accounts during his four years as president. Foreign governments rented out whole floors of his hotel five blocks from the White House while lobbyists conducted business in the hotel’s restaurants. Payday lenders and other trade groups moved their annual conventions to Trump golf resorts. And individual favor seekers joined his private Mar-a-Lago club with its $200,000 admission fee in hopes of getting a few minutes with the President. Despite earning more than $1 million every day he was in office, Trump left the White House as he arrived—hard up for cash. More than $400 million in debt comes due by 2024, and Trump still lacks the resources to pay it back.

“Few people are as well positioned to write an exposé of the former president as Johnston” (The Washington Post), and The Big Cheat offers a guided tour of how money flowed in and out of Trump’s hundreds of enterprises, showing in simple terms how a corrupt president used our government for his benefit, even putting national security at risk. Johnston details the four most recent years of the corruption that has defined the Trump family since 1885 and reveals the costs of Trump’s extravagant lifestyle for American taxpayers.

About David Cay Johnston

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter and bestselling author of The Making of Donald Trump and It’s Even Worse Than You Think. He has lectured on economics, journalism, and tax policy on every continent except Antarctica and is a former president of Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE). Johnston has been a frequent guest on MSNBC, CNN, the BBC, ABC World News TonightDemocracy Now!, and NPR’s Morning Edition, among other shows, and was a consultant for the Netflix series House of Cards.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Judy

This is required reading for every American. Every one. David Cay Johnston has once again proved that he is one of the foremost critics of the Trump regime. He has the cred. This is an economics book written for people who find economics boring, not worth their time; egghead stuff. Nothing is further......more

Goodreads review by Tim

Before reading this book, I thought I understood the corruption of Trump, his family and his cronies; I was wrong. It was much worse than I knew. Great book by an investigative reporter who has Trump’s number.......more

Goodreads review by Suzi

Well-documented expose of how Trump made the presidency pay for him -- and his family. Easy to read and understand. Interesting insight into Trump appointees and how they served their own interests, too. Sickening.......more

Goodreads review by Mark

Despite the fact that David Cay Johnston’s The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family covers much of what is already known about Donald Trump’s misdeeds while in office for four years, it is an entertaining and authoritative refresher. That refresher, by the......more