Front Row at the Trump Show

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Jonathan Karl is a great journalist and writer !! I applaud his courage!!

I read, enjoyed and recommend purchasing and reading the book: “Front Row at the Trump Show” by Jonathan Karl. Despite initial reservations about spending time to read yet another book about Trump and this era, I found it refreshing both in providing a well-written summary of the first three and a half years of the Trump presidency (including appropriate lead in material about Trump and his use of publicity) and a thoughtful yet impassioned defense of the value of an objective fact-based free press. In addition to collecting all of the highlights of the first three and a half years of the Trump presidency, including how his senior staff viewed him and staff turn-over, Karl has collected many entertaining nuggets and back stories of material that give life to material that might otherwise be considered a well-done repeat of other books. Several of his sources help develop an even fuller understanding of President Trump, his personality and mental health and how he operates as President.

Of all the reporters who cover Donald Trump at the White House, few have known him longer than Jonathan Karl, who was a 26-year-old reporter for the New York Post when he met the flamboyant real estate developer.The story that day in 1994 was not about politics, it was about Michael Jackson, who was on his honeymoon in Trump Tower. Trump himself gave Karl the grand tour of the building, agreeing to share details if Karl attributed everything to a “source in the Trump Organization.”Years later, a somewhat bemused Karl was sitting with Trump, who was on the phone and lying his head off about something not at all important. It was then that Karl realized, “Donald Trump lies for comic effect, he lies to make himself feel good, he lies to make you feel good, he lies because he likes to, he lies because he can.”It probably won’t surprise people that the chief White House correspondent for ABC News says that Trump lies, but Karl does not think Trump alone should be blamed for the toxic state of relations between the Trump administration and the news media.“It may be silly for somebody who goes to work in the Oval Office every day to feel insufficiently appreciated, but the truth is that the mainstream media coverage of Donald Trump is relentlessly and exhaustively negative,” Karl writes in his new book Front Row at the Trump Show. “His accomplishments – and there are accomplishments – are either ignored or overshadowed by the drumbeat of outrage fueled by his own outrageous behavior.”Karl writes, “…all too often reporters and news organizations have aided and abetted the effort to undermine the free press by openly displaying how much they detest this president – his policies, his blatant disregard for the truth, or his vilification of the press – and behaving like anti-Trump partisans rather than journalists striving for fairness and objectivity. We are not the opposition party, but that is the way some of us have acted, doing as much to undermine the credibility of the free press as the president’s taunts.”One reporter Karl singles out is Jim Acosta, the CNN White House reporter known for his combative exchanges with Trump. During one presidential briefing, Acosta shouted over another reporter to get a reaction from Trump. “Acosta was portraying himself as some kind of righteous advocate for the free press,” Karl writes, “but to most of the reporters in that room, he was just rudely interrupting a colleague . . . ”The current president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Karl has strong feelings about the White House press secretaries – he’s worked with 13 different press secretaries under four presidents, so far – especially when they lie deliberately. Karl actually has less patience with them than he does with presidents who lie, because he believes the job of a press secretary is to tell the truth.Nor does he spare the self-proclaimed “grownups” who have joined Trump’s inner circle supposedly to protect the country from the president’s impetuousness. Karl’s method of criticizing is not to give his own opinion, but to quote directly from people like John F. Kelly, Trump’s short-term chief of staff, in a way that makes Kelly come off like a self-important, and ultimately impotent, jerk.One Trump official who was vilified in the press, Kirstjen Nielsen, is portrayed sympathetically by Karl as misunderstood and a victim of cutthroat White House politics, when she unfairly became the face of Trump’s immigration policies. The policies were not hers, but as secretary of Homeland Security she tried to carry out the president’s wishes, and was sharply criticized before she resigned.Karl points out that Trump’s attacks on the news media have a calculated purpose. Trump himself has said that by attacking reporters, he casts doubt on everything they say. Perhaps more importantly, the Trump Show needs a villain to spar with the hero, and reporters happily play the role. Trump has effectively, and unfortunately, branded the news media as the “opposition party.”“But a free press is not the opposition party,” Karl writes. “Our role is to inform the public, seek the truth, ask tough questions, and attempt to hold those in power accountable by shining a spotlight on what they are doing. We are not the opposition, but in the Trump era, the free press has sometimes appeared like the opposition.”There is a place for opinion journalism, Karl writes. “But there is a crucial role for reporters and news organizations who strive for objectivity and balance. Our opinions – and we all have opinions – should be irrelevant.”One of Karl’s interesting observations is that reaction to violent protests led by racists in Charlottesville was a turning point for Trump. In one of Trump’s comments about the 2017 violence, the new president clumsily tried to blame “both sides.” When even his Republican allies attacked him for equating racism with anti-racism, Trump reversed himself. But then that change of tone was criticized, too.All his life, Trump believed he never should back down or admit a mistake, but on the unanimous recommendation of his advisors, he tried to change course about Charlottesville, sort of, and it backfired. Karl writes that Trump vowed never again to correct himself or apologize.Reporters at the White House should remember that about Trump. Reporters frequently ask Trump – about every perceived error, misstatement, falsehood, or errant Tweet – if he will admit to making a mistake or apologize. No, he won’t, and the insistent reporters appear to be badgering and shaming him. There must be more effective ways to hold the president accountable, without expecting Trump to go against his nature and admit a mistake.“The Trump show will eventually become a distant memory,” Karl concludes. “The question is whether America will ever be the same again, whether we have become a nation of people who define truth in relative terms, accepting as true only what we want to believe, yelling ‘fake news’ at everything else, a nation so thoroughly divided we cannot agree on what is real.”Fortunately, we have people like Jonathan Karl – reporters with good memories, even dispositions, and a relentless desire to be in the front row.(The reviewer, Peter Copeland, is a former foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief who occasionally occupied the Scripps Howard seat in the White House briefing room. He is the author of Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter).

If you want to know the TRUTH of what goes on in the White House…..

I absolutely loved this book. I've known of Jonathan Karl for more than a decade and have always considered him a standup journalist. Unlike a political pundit who offers commentary based upon their personal opinion, journalists are expected to present ONLY the facts, whether or not it conforms to popular sentiment. While Jon absolutely offered his opinion, for the most part he stuck to his journalistic principles and presented the facts. What I loved and respected the most was that he offered commendation when it was warranted, which is quite frankly a breath of fresh air. Regarding subject matter, I can't tell you how many times this book actually made me laugh. Not because Jonathan was writing a comedy routine, but because a comedy routine was basically written for him. It was funny because the things that happened throughout the Trump Show were sad. I truly hope Jonathan does a follow-up to this book that covers the period after Trump lost re-election and was forced to leave the White House. You have NO idea how much I want to be a fly on the wall and know what's going on behind the scenes with that cluster.

Jonathan Karl has been talking with and in general covering Donald Trump for the past 20 plus years so he is quite familiar with the man and his companies. I would not call them friends but in some way I think DT respect JK for his coverage over the year and now at the end of trump presidency coming here in Jan 2021..This is a good read to see how someone,DT, that we all knew going in to the 2016 election had a history of inflating (lying about) the truth and doing thing that were not considered by some to be legal.In this book JK lays out his past encounters with trump and during the presidency and in dealing with all the press secretary during the past 4 yrs which is telling in itself.He show the out and out lies that came from the president and at times his press secretary when answering questions a practice that the current PS is doing to this day in dec 14, 2020..the book if not all that revealing to stuff we did not know for the most part about trump and co. but more a look at the past with trump and how he was now and he was then.. crooked and willing to put him and his family first over the US citizens on many accounts.After you read this i highly recommend you check out rick wilson (big time GOP strategist) book,, everything trump touches dies, written by a real insider to the trump campaign and before, revealing stuff you would gasp at. both are excellent for sure.

Not bad, not great

Very enjoyable. Felt as if I was in the WH press room as I read this book. Fly-on-the-wall kinda stuff. Superb!

Not a particularly easy to read book . just like reading someone's diary. Full of facts. Depends how much you want to know about trump.

Great read! Recommend purchasing this book.

I was expecting a much more thorough and objective account, but this is many of he same simplistic anti-Trump banalities that have been around for a long time now.

Interesting info