Chronicling Trump’s chaotic last year in office

When Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker asked to speak to former President Donald Trump about his last year in office, he agreed, surprising them all. He hosted them for a lavish dinner at Mar-A-Lago, his hotel and residence in Palm Beach, Fla., just 10 weeks after his term ended. During their two-and-a-half-hour conversation, Trump was fixed on “The Big Lie” that he won the 2020 election. He also said he believes he’s America’s greatest president, that “not even George Washington” could beat him.

The braggadocio is not unexpected from Trump, and it marks Leonnig and Rucker’s new book, “I Alone Can Fix It,” a follow-up to their Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “A Very Stable Genius.” Their latest release details the final 12 months of the Trump presidency. 

It’s packed with revelations about the former president’s mishandling of the pandemic (he wouldn’t do anything differently) to the racial justice protests after George Floyd’s murder (he wishes he’d called out the military). But the stories grabbing the most headlines are those that describe Trump’s obsession with self over country, with the health of his poll numbers above all.

Wednesday morning, host Kerri Miller talked to Leonnig about the book, how she and Rucker managed to research it, and how she believes history will look back at the tumultuous year of 2020. 

Guest:

• Carol Leonnig is a reporter for the Washington Post and the co-author of the newly released “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year.”

To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above.

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