Bloomsbury lands 'heart-racing' account of Trump's last year in office

Bloomsbury is to publish I Alone Can Fix It, a behind-the-scenes account of former US President Donald Trump’s final year in office, by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker.

The synopsis explains: "Focused on Trump and the key players around him—the doctors, generals, senior advisers, and Trump family members—Leonnig and Rucker provide a forensic account of the most devastating year in a presidency like no other. Their sources were in the room as time and time again Trump put his personal gain ahead of the good of the country. These witnesses to history tell the story of him longing to deploy the military to the streets of American cities to crush the protest movement in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, all to bolster his image of strength ahead of the election. 

"These sources saw first-hand his refusal to take the threat of coronavirus seriously—even to the point of allowing himself and those around him to be infected. This is a story of a nation sabotaged—economically, medically, and politically—by its own leader, culminating with a ground-breaking, minute-by-minute account of exactly what went on in the Capitol building on 6th January, as Trump’s supporters so easily breached the most sacred halls of American democracy, and how the president reacted. With unparalleled access, Leonnig and Rucker explain and expose exactly who enabled—and who foiled—Trump as he sought desperately to cling to power. A classic and heart-racing work of investigative reporting, I Alone Can Fix It is destined to be read and studied by citizens and historians alike for decades to come."

Associate publisher Alexis Kirschbaum acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Natasha Fairweather at RCW, on behalf of Elyse Cheney at the Cheney Agency. Bloomsbury will publish on 20th July.

Kirschbaum said: "With unprecedented access to White House insiders on both sides of the aisle, Rucker and Leonnig’s brilliant new book seeks to make sense of one of the most tumultuous years in US history. There is much here that has never been revealed before, and certainly it has never been told with such verve and gobsmacking detail. I’m incredibly proud to be publishing an investigative report that amounts to our first comprehensive public reckoning of Trump’s final chaotic year as president."

Leonnig is a national investigative reporter at the Washington Post, where she has worked since 2000, covering Donald Trump’s presidency and previous administrations. She won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on security failures and misconduct inside the Secret Service. She also was part of the Post teams awarded Pulitzers in 2018, for reporting on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and, in 2014, for revealing the US government’s secret, broad surveillance of Americans.

Rucker is the senior Washington correspondent at the Washington Post and led its coverage of Trump and his administration as White House bureau chief. He and a team of Post reporters won the Pulitzer Prize and George Polk Award for their reporting on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. In 2021, the White House Correspondents’ Association honoured Rucker with the Aldo Beckman Award for overall excellence in White House coverage.