... an attempt to capture the madness that is the Trump presidency and the danger to democracy it poses. Aided by measured prose and healthy skepticism, Karl succeeds.

... Karl follows Trump in his first years as president, reporting with accuracy and clarity but little new insight. To be fair, it's not Karl's fault that we've visited these spots again and again like weary pilgrims traversing the Via Dolorosa.

One senses in this account that, like many others, Karl is both attracted and somewhat repelled by Trump largely because of his propensity to lie.

If Trump takes the podium in the White House briefing room and delivers a rambling, muttering completely incoherent slew of resentment, innuendo, and spite, Karl and his network behave like clockwork: they seize on a couple of semi-coherent half-sentences, they stitch together various semi-points often separated by 30 minutes of garbled nonsense, and they tediously rebut 'factual inaccuracies' they know perfectly well are fully conscious lies. In other words, they normalize Trump, again and again...That is not informing the public. That is not asking tough questions. That is certainly not holding those in power accountable.

... a book devoted to the importance of objective journalism, even in the face of widespread dissimulation. Sober instead of smug, Karl still can’t quite get past Trump as an individual.

The author keeps his eye on the subject and not in the mirror.

Mr. Karl, the chief White House correspondent for ABC News, necessarily tells the story from the media’s side, but he is a fair-minded reporter rather than a media cheerleader. Unlike other books about Mr. Trump by members of the news media, Mr. Karl’s book presents the 45th president as a complex, multilayered person: self-regarding, sometimes mean, disdainful of factual accuracy; but also approachable to ordinary people, at times reflective, and smarter than his critics give him credit for.

... detailed yet disappointing.