FROM the author of the 2018 million-selling tome Fire and Fury (whose publication the subject attempted to block) and its sequels Siege and Landslide, follows All or Nothing – the first major work about Donald Trump’s re-election to drop since his inauguration to the US presidency, expounding on the most unpredictable campaign in US history, involving multiple criminal trials, two assassination attempts, and a sudden switch of opponents.
An insider account (albeit lambasted as “is a total FAKE JOB, just like the other JUNK he wrote”, Trump posted after the first revelations from Michael Wolff’s latest tome broke) of the 2024 Trump campaign, All or Nothing transports readers on a journey accompanying Trump on his return to power as only Wolff – the foremost chronicler of the Trump era – can. Wolff’s is a disturbing read about how Trump willed his way back to power and captured a plurality of the electorate – enroute to re-occupying the White House as a twice-adjudicated fraudster, as well as the first convicted felon to hold the US presidency.
Through personal access to Trump’s inner circle, he narrates a behind the-scenes landscape of Trump’s world and its unlikely cast of primary players as well as the candidate himself – deemed the most successful figure in American politics.
His third campaign was better organized than his previous ones because he finally hired a couple of competent political consultants — Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles (who is now his Chief-of-Staff) — to run it. Offering a glimpse into his subject, Wolff writes that, “The most basic Trump White House operating rule was that nobody could talk back to the president — ever, in any sense.” He lives in a tightly controlled world, “populated only by lackeys, flunkies, and sycophants.”
(Trump once held sway in a moment reported as “a bit chilling”, during which he suddenly stood up and, hand on his heart, faced a television screen showing the Star-Spangled banner and simultaneously playing patriotic songs – causing everybody present to jump up too, with the yellow haired and orange faced prima donna [the man’s real appearance, as attested so by his image featured on the tome’s cover] flourishing the episode by dancing a jig whilst singing, “Number one, number one, number one!”)
As Trump cruelly and swiftly dispatched his opponents, vented fury on prosecutors and judges pursuing him, and belittled anyone in his way – including President Joe Biden – the 2024 election became not just another election but one in which the stakes escalated to: Either the establishment destroyed Donald Trump, or he destroyed the establishment.
What then emerged was a dichotomous reality: a legal quagmire on the other side, and a positive political outlook comprising of overwhelming support within his party, ever-rising polling numbers, and lacklustre opposition – on another.
Trump has managed to be successful, with some of it having to do with the populist wave driven by anti-immigration sentiment sweeping across Western democracies. Wolff deduces some of it to the fact that Trump is among the luckiest men in political history. His luck extended even to his various legal troubles, one of which had the justices on the Supreme Court bench (a third of whom Trump had appointed) issuing an unexpected decision granting him—and all presidents—immunity for any act that could be construed as “official,” no matter how dubious.
As Wolff puts it: “If your luck breaks for you fifty-fifty, you’ve certainly done well. Donald Trump, for his part, might seem to have among the highest luck percentages ever recorded, fate, good fortune, or the stars rescuing him from so many nadirs.”
Still, Trump’s success has been due to more than that – with Wolff attributing it to him being, “the most extraordinary showman in the history of American politics.”
After he was nearly assassinated in Pennsylvania, he had had the presence of mind to pump his fist and yell “Fight! Fight! Fight!” before allowing Secret Service agents (who numbered eighty at various times) to rush him off to safety. He is not a politician with voters but a pop star with fans (he is described as something of a beloved but aged rock-and-roll act in Elvis’ mould whose Mar-a-Lago residency became a shrineesque setting for a cast of deferential visitors ranging from bootlickers and opportunists – to the Hollywood actor, Jon Voight).
In 2024, Trump was said to be all fury, a “petty, spiteful, raging, aggrieved King John — nothing ever going his way.” He was appropriately positioned to be a beneficiary of a transformation not just about himself, but about a broader shift in American political culture in which rage, resentment, and grievance had become dominant political emotions – ones which ultimately propelled him back to power.
Ultimately, came November, Trump would trump the Democratic Party’s Kamala Harris by 312 votes to 226 in the electoral college, and in addition to victory in the popular vote – making him only the second Republican candidate to win the popular vote since 1988. En-route to victory, Trump had improved upon his 2020 campaign in both red (Republican-leaning) and blue (Democratic leaning) states – simultaneously capturing enough swing states to reach margins which would eventually reinstall him to the Oval Office.
Prior to the much-hyped debates against his opponent, Harris, Trump, in fury mode, had proposed a post which in part comprised the invective: She’s acknowledged to be the Worst Vice President in History, which works very nicely against the Worst President, Crooked Joe Biden. The combination of these two Low IQ individuals have destroyed our Country, but we will Make America Great Again!
The post per se revealed a vestige of racism involving the septuagenarian’s inability to countenance the likelihood of Harris succeeding Biden as president – with him reportedly avowing that: “It won’t be Harris. It’ll never be Harris.”
Analysts attributed the 2024 Election outcome which returned Trump to power to: the 2021–2023 inflation surge, a global anti-incumbent wave, the unpopularity of the Biden administration, and Trump’s gains with the working class and minority voters (he received more votes from Latino residents than any other Republican presidential candidate in history, made inroads with Black voters – as well as Muslim residents in areas which usually overwhelmingly backed Democrats); a Black Asian woman (Harris) becoming nominee for president whilst only having 107 days to prepare; a shift in political party support whereby the Republican base now largely consists of the working class – in contrast to the Democrats’ disproportionate representation by enforcers of propriety (i.e., business owners).
Inter alia, Wolff’s account mentions: a dismal picture of Trump’s third marriage in which Melania is described as having not enjoyed a single day in the White House; Trump’s 34 criminal convictions for paying the porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about her claimed affair; allegations of Trump’s anti semitism in the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023; reports of misogyny involving Trump musing that Michelle Obama would replace Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket in 2024 – purportedly because, “They think she looks pretty manly.”; his tetchy relationship with Elon Musk, who had ingratiated himself into his campaign – with Trump’s circle promptly anticipating the moment “the two most bumptious and successful men in America” would have a fall out.
Now back in the White House – a victor after a campaign pending which there was ponderance as to whether he really had been contesting for the office, or that it was so as to avoid jail, considering his impending legal posers – Trump describes himself as a “king”, regularly holding court to titans of industry prostrating themselves before him. “But,” cautions Wolff, “there is, too, the inescapable fact of his age, term limits, second-term malaise, and his lame-duck status – and then the story will end.”
Don’t be so sure, though – considering that Trump openly speaks of a third term.
The fourth book and final chapter about Trump’s political journey by Wolff, All or Nothing is a moment-by-moment, behind-the-scenes first-hand observation of Trump at significant and revealing junctures during his third run for the presidency of the United States.
It paints a portrait of a man who, amidst litigatory imbroglios, staged one of the most remarkable comebacks in American political history – in which he emerged triumphant. It is not just a story about politics – but a vivid exposé of American life under Trump.
A trade paperback, All or Nothing is published by Little Brown and distributed in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
Available at leading bookstores countrywide, it retails for R470.
Image Jen Harris (Michael Wolff, author All or Nothing).
