Book Review: I Alone Can Fix It by Carole Leonnig and Philip Rucker

Trump’s presidency was abysmal, and his final year in office was extremely calamitous. From a global pandemic to preemptive attacks on vote-by-mail to the peddling of conspiracy theories to the January 6th domestic terror attack on the U.S. Capitol, Trump sowed discord among the American electorate and stoked anger in his supporters. And these were only actions to which the public was privy.

If Trump’s presidency was a folly of poor choices inflicted upon the public, imagine what it was like for senior administration officials inside the White House. In I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, they pull back the curtain on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and give the reader a behind-the-scenes look at the Trump administration.

I Alone Can Fix It is a firsthand account of those who worked inside the White House and paints a grim picture of a culture where senior officials were pitted against each other and walked a tightrope as to not step out of favor with Trump. Leonnig and Rucker interviewed over 140 senior administration officials and corroborated the reporting in the book. They even sat down with Trump for an interview at Mar-a-Lago.

From Trump’s handling of COVID-19, his re-election bid, and the ensuing chaotic and violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in the wake of his months-long peddling of the big lie, no stone or catastrophe is omitted. Leonnig and Rucker deliver facts and support the startling truth of the inner workings of Trump’s administration and 45’s management style.

Leonnig and Rucker do not shy away from the truth. They offer an obstructed look into the timeline of events from Trump’s re-election loss leading up to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. The comprehensive details provided in the timeline of events are jarring and paint a clear picture of Trump’s inaction and the role the vice president played to protect and uphold the Constitution while Trump shirked responsibility.

It’s safe to say that Stephen King could not have written a more terrifying account of the edge on which American democracy teetered with Trump at the helm of our nation. I Alone Can Fix It is an explosive sequel to Leonnig and Rucker’s first book, A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America.

If you are looking for a comprehensive and unobstructed view into the roles Bill Barr, Mark Esper, General Mark Milley, Mark Meadows, and others played to keep the guardrails of democracy on, look no further. Leonnig and Rucker put a steady hand to pen and deliver the reader never-before reported details of Trump’s final year. Overall, the book captures and pulls the reader into meetings in the Oval Office and private phone conversations with top-tier advisors as they navigate how to keep Trump on an even keel and avoid a Twitter pink slip. However, not every advisor has altruistic intentions, and both Leonnig and Rucker uncover how some campaign advisors continue to work to keep the grift going even after the election results are in.

I Alone Can Fix It is a compulsive read. The book shows how close our nation came to the end of a great experiment, and a must-read for anyone who lived through the last year of Trump’s presidency and wants to learn the truth about how America survived Trump’s final year.