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Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House
Team of Vipers My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House
Author: Cliff Sims
The first honest insider’s account of the Trump administration. If you hate Trump you need the truth; if you love Trump you need the truth. — After standing at Donald Trump’s side on Election Night, Cliff Sims joined him in the West Wing as Special Assistant to the President and Director of White House Message Strateg...  more »
ISBN-13: 9781250223890
ISBN-10: 125022389X
Publication Date: 1/29/2019
Pages: 384
Rating:
  • Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
 3

3.7 stars, based on 3 ratings
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review
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reviewed Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House on + 19 more book reviews
This tell-all is a little different than most in its genre. It quietly humanizes, for better or worse, the people and events who populated Trump's staff the years he was in the presidency. Sims must have been a great note-taker if all this is true. His obvious pro-Trump bias is clearly evident, but the episodes he describes are sometimes funny, sometimes pathetic, sometimes horrifying, but usually worth reading for the insight he provides that helps explain why this White House was so dysfunctional. I would not have purchased the book, but glad i got the opportunity to read it.
reviewed Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House on + 1775 more book reviews
My rating is based on Mr. Sims here sharing with readers what Pt. Trump is like because I feel we can now better make our own shrewd evaluation of the president dipping into this book. In my case, I am still not a fan.
As I type this I am listening to yet another stream-of-consciousness briefing updating the war on Covid-19.
Sims worked hard to publish this book and will likely do well with it. I learned of it via a favorable review or heard him flogging it, I don't remember which, wished for it to send to the old soldiers' home as it is so current, and thank Ms. Katrina Benson, our PBS comrade.
The author took careful notes as he labored beside Mr. Trump for the best part of two years in a job that burns out aides, but gave the work gave him a close up viewpoint. For example, the president shared an idea to present trophies to those news organizations that he felt were notorious purveyors of prejudiced reports, such as 'CNN-Fake News Network of the Year.' "As everyone working for Donald Trump knew, there were generally two kinds of presidential requests--ones you acted on and ones you ignored unless he brought it up again. I figured this was the latter. A little over a month went byn without him saying anything else about it, at least to me. But late on New Years Day of 2018, I got a text from a friend traveling back from Mar-a-Lago with the president in Air Force One. 'POTUS is back to talking about the Fake News Awards. He wants to host an awards show and hand out trophies.' The text ended with an Emoji character that's laughing so hard its crying."
The photographs are well chosen.
This was pursued but wound up entangled in the advice of the White House Counsel's office, etc. and in the end the RNC published the list online and the president could Tweet about it, not giving the bang the showman hoped for. Mr. Sims concludes, "...Seeing some of the most egregious reporting errors of 2017 all in one place was actually pretty striking. For all the justifiable criticism of the Trump administration's credibility issues--and there were plenty of them--the media gave the President numerous opportunities throw that charge back at them."
Index.


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