Earlier this month, publishers Simon & Schuster announced they had printed one million copies of Fear: Trump in the White House, Bob Woodward's account of the first year or so of Donald Trump's time as President of the United States. I have no doubt that all those copies will be quickly snapped up – few political books have been the subject of such feverish anticipation – and many more besides (Fear is already the fastest-selling title since 2015). But I do wonder how many will be read.
For all its extraordinary revelations – many of which were leaked to the press before publication – Fear is actually rather dull. It is not gossipy enough to really entertain in the way that Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury does. But nor is it exhaustive or reliable enough to be treated as the definitive second draft of this period of history.
What we’re left with, then, is a book that feels desperately uneven. One minute we’re reading about the absurd moment Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon told Ivanka Trump, “You’re nothing but a [expletive] staffer!”, to which she replied, “I’m the first daughter and I’ll never be a staffer”. The next we’re being asked to wade through a stodgy chapter on Trump’s economic policy or a highly technical section on Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation. It’s a bit of a muddle.
In a "Note to Readers" at the beginning, Woodward, the Washington Post journalist whose reporting of the Watergate scandal helped bring down Richard Nixon, explains that the interviews used in his book were conducted under the protection of "deep background". What this means, he explains, is that "all the information could be used, but I would not say who provided it".
It is easy enough to guess, though. The same small pool of voices comprises the overwhelming majority of Fear. Bannon; former chief economic advisor Gary Cohn; former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus; former Staff Secretary Rob Porter – I could be wrong, of course, but this appears to be their version of events (none of them has denied being a source, even if they dispute the book's accuracy). The prevalence of the word "former" in that list should also give you some clue as to their motives. Woodward's book has to be read within this context.
This is not to say that parts of the book aren’t enjoyable or intriguing, however. After the tape emerged during the campaign of Trump boasting about his sexual prowess, for example, we are told that Melania Trump was asked to sit alongside her husband for a televised apology. As Woodward puts it: “It was clear she was seething. ‘Not doing that,’ she said in her Slovenian accent, dismissively waving her hand. ‘No way. No, no, no’.”
And when news of Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons reached Trump, he allegedly called Secretary of Defence James Mattis and said, “Let’s [expletive] kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the [expletive] lot of them.”
The sections on Trump’s relationship with Kim Jong-un are particularly good. Most notable is the moment, in early 2018, when Trump came perilously close to sending a tweet ordering all American military dependants to leave South Korea, something which would indicate that the US was preparing for military action against North Korea.
“The leader of a country like North Korea that only recently had acquired nuclear weapons and had many fewer nukes than a potential adversary, could be trigger-happy,” writes Woodward. “A use-it-or-lose-it mindset could take hold.” Fortunately, the tweet was never sent.
What emerges from this book is a portrait of a president totally unfit for the job. He demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of how the American economy works or how policy is made, he acts irrationally, lies compulsively, changes his mind daily, sometimes hourly, and treats his staff with utter contempt. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is quoted here as calling him “a [expletive] moron”, while Chief of Staff John Kelly describes his job as “the worst I’ve ever had”.
This sort of stuff goes on and on. The book opens with a report of how Porter would remove documents from Trump’s desk in order to stop him signing them. At one point, Priebus reportedly says, “the President has zero psychological ability to recognise empathy or pity in any way.” At another, Cohn tells Porter, “I don’t know how much longer I can stay because things are just crazy here. They’re so chaotic.”
And yet, and yet… none of these punches really land. This is Trump. He doesn’t operate like a normal president. And to be frank, no one needs to plough through 450-odd pages to find this out, even if Woodward does, at times, illustrate the point more lucidly than anyone else has so far managed.
For his part, Trump has already dismissed the book as "a joke". No surprises there, of course; he has a knack of brushing these things off. This book certainly isn't "a joke" – in fact, it's the policy wonks who will get the most out of it – but it's hard to imagine that, with Fear, Woodward will be bringing down another American President.
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
The biog
Favourite film: Motorcycle Dairies, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, Kagemusha
Favourite book: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Holiday destination: Sri Lanka
First car: VW Golf
Proudest achievement: Building Robotics Labs at Khalifa University and King’s College London, Daughters
Driverless cars or drones: Driverless Cars
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
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7pm: Flood Zone
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
Bookshops: A Reader's History by Jorge Carrión (translated from the Spanish by Peter Bush),
Biblioasis
Visit Abu Dhabi culinary team's top Emirati restaurants in Abu Dhabi
Yadoo’s House Restaurant & Cafe
For the karak and Yoodo's house platter with includes eggs, balaleet, khamir and chebab bread.
Golden Dallah
For the cappuccino, luqaimat and aseeda.
Al Mrzab Restaurant
For the shrimp murabian and Kuwaiti options including Kuwaiti machboos with kebab and spicy sauce.
Al Derwaza
For the fish hubul, regag bread, biryani and special seafood soup.
'Champions'
Director: Manuel Calvo
Stars: Yassir Al Saggaf and Fatima Al Banawi
Rating: 2/5
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
