The Madman Theory, Jim Sciutto
The Madman Theory, Jim Sciutto
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The Madman Theory
Trump Takes On the World

Author: Jim Sciutto

Narrator: Jim Sciutto

Unabridged: 8 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 08/11/2020


Synopsis

From praising dictators to alienating allies, Trump made chaos his calling card. But four years into his administration, had his strategy caused more problems than it solved?Richard Nixon tried it first. Hoping to make communist bloc countries uneasy and thus unstable, Nixon let them think he was just crazy enough to nuke them. He called this “the madman theory.” Nearly half a century later, President Trump employed his own “madman theory,” sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.Trump praised Kim Jong-un and their “love notes,” admired and flattered Vladimir Putin, and gave a greenlight to Recep Tayyip Erdogan to invade Syria. Meanwhile, he attacked US institutions and officials, ignored his own advisors, and turned his back on US allies from Canada and Mexico to NATO to Ukraine to the Kurds at war with ISIS. Trump was willing to make the nation’s most sensitive and consequential decisions while often ignoring the best information and intelligence available to him. He continually caught the world off guard, but did it work?In The Madman Theory, Jim Sciutto showed how Trump's supporters assumed he had a strategy for long-term success – that he somehow played three-dimensional chess. Four years into Trump's presidency, it was clear his unpredictable focus on short-term headlines did in fact lead to predictably mediocre results in the short and long run. Trump’s foreign policy undermined American values and national security interests, while hurting allies who had been on our side for decades, leaving them isolated and vulnerable without American support. Meanwhile, Trump had comforted and emboldened our enemies. The White House’s revolving door of staff demonstrated that Trump had no real plan; all serious policymakers—and those who would be a check on his most destructive impulses—were exiled or jumped ship.Sciutto interviewed a wide swath of then-current and former administration officials to assemble the first comprehensive portrait of the impact of Trump’s erratic foreign policy. Smart, authoritative, and compelling, The Madman Theory is the definitive take on Trump’s calamitous legacy around the globe, showing how his proclivity for chaos was creating a world which was more unstable, violent, and impoverished than it had been before.

About Jim Sciutto

Jim Sciutto is CNN's chief national security correspondent and co-anchor of CNN Newsroom. After more than two decades as a foreign correspondent stationed in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, he returned to Washington to cover the Defense Department, the State Department, and intelligence agencies for CNN. His work has earned him Emmy Awards, the George Polk Award, the Edward R. Murrow award, and the Merriman Smith Memorial Award for excellence in presidential coverage. A graduate of Yale and a Fulbright Fellow, he lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Gloria Riviera, who is a crisis communications professional and journalist for ABC News, and their three children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ross on October 05, 2020

This is a surprisingly nuanced and fair examination of President Trump's foreign policies and decision making processes, and I've already seen other reviews complaining it's either pro-Trump or biased against Trump. Jim Sciutto actually makes an effort to fairly present the Trumpian worldview, which......more

Goodreads review by Sam on August 31, 2020

This was a very entertaining book, especially after having lived through the past 3 1/2 years of the "Chump" administration. The Trumpies will, of course, poo pah, the book because it is the truth of what we have all lived through. Sciutto discusses all of the ins and outs of Trump's mishandling of......more

Goodreads review by Ronan on November 22, 2020

I remember feeling chills as I read about the madman theory Nixon employed, intentionally trying to appear a little bit deranged and unpredictable in an attempt to force adversaries to back down. It was like playing chicken, only instead of two cars rushing headlong, you have the entire United State......more

Goodreads review by Dot526 on April 24, 2024

This was an interesting read but I didn’t learn anything new about Trump. He is cruel and dumb and gullible. I did find the reactions of other countries to Trump’s foreign policy/lack thereof to be the most fascinating part.......more

Goodreads review by Dkolacinski on August 28, 2020

Factual information about DJT's ability to act rationally and consistently was never so fascinating than listening to it while watching the Trump boldly violating both federal law and tradition by holding his acceptance speech and huge fireworks display on federal grounds. Of course, he didn't viola......more