Devil's Bargain

Last updated

Devil's Bargain
Devils Bargain by Joshua Green.jpg
Book cover
Author Joshua Green
Audio read byFred Sanders
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subject United States politics
Publisher Penguin Press
Publication date
July 18, 2017
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Pages288
ISBN 978-0-7352-2502-2 (Hardcover)
OCLC 988290255

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency is a 2017 book by Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Joshua Green about the partnership between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon that led to their 2016 political victory and the putative rise of the alt-right. [1] [2] [3] Prior to writing the book, Green had worked as a journalist for The Atlantic and Bloomberg, where he garnered experience reporting on conservatives. [4] He had previously written a profile on Bannon in 2015, and interviewed Bannon for the book. [4] [5]

Contents

The book describes Bannon's role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and how he helped lead Trump to success by capitalizing on the support of white males. [6]

The New York Review of Books called Green's work a "cautionary tale". [4] The New York Times described Green's research as "deeply reported". [1] The Washington Post commented Green was able to shed a light on Bannon's political operations. [3] The Guardian concluded Devil's Bargain successfully illuminated the "symbiotic relationship" between Trump and Bannon. [7] Paste commented on the writing style of the "compelling stories" in Green's work. [8] Salon observed Green had "amazing access" during the course of his research for the book. [5]

Contents summary

Devil's Bargain details the relationship between Trump and Bannon, the gaining influence of the alt-right movement during the same time period, and the events which led up to Trump's victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. [1] [2] [3] Green describes the shared dislike of Hillary Clinton felt by Trump and Bannon, and their mutual dislike for the state of the country prior to Trump's campaign. [7]

The book recounts the precise nature of why Chris Christie was fired by Trump from the presidential campaign. [8] Green writes the firing was due to Christie attempting to use his own personal cell phone to take a call on election night from President Barack Obama. [8]

The author writes that Bannon garnered knowledge in his work with Breitbart News on how best to gather together white men who would support Trump in his election bid. [6] Green concludes that there was a Shakespearean irony in the fact that Bannon succeeded in getting Trump elected as U.S. president, but his candidate lacked the personal restraint necessary to accomplish simple goals. [6]

Composition and publication

Prior to writing Devil's Bargain, Green had worked as a journalist at The Atlantic and subsequently Bloomberg Businessweek , where he reported on Republican political figures after the George W. Bush Administration. [4] Green wrote an article for Bloomberg which gave a detailed analysis of Bannon in October 2015, ten months before Bannon assumed leadership of Trump's campaign for U.S. president. [4] Green interviewed Bannon himself for the book. [5]

Reception

The New York Review of Books wrote in its review, "Green's book is in part a cautionary tale: both Trump and Bannon have a history of being taken lightly only to rear up and catch the skeptics by surprise." [4] The New York Times called the book a "deeply reported and compulsively readable account of Bannon's fateful political partnership with Trump". [1] The Washington Post wrote, "Green's book strips away the mystery surrounding Bannon". [3] The Guardian commented that the book "vividly pulls back the curtain on the symbiotic relationship between two of America's most polarizing figures." [7] Paste magazine wrote that "There are several, compelling stories in the book". [8] Salon noted, "Green does seem to have had amazing access to many people, most especially Bannon himself whom he apparently interviewed at length." [5]

Influence

Devil's Bargain is mentioned in Michael Wolff's 2018 book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. [9]

Related Research Articles

Aaron Klein is an American-Israeli conservative political commentator, journalist, strategist, bestselling author, and senior advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He served as campaign manager for Netanyahu's election campaign for the March 2021 election and as chief strategist for Netanyahu's successful 2020 election campaign. Klein was Netanyahu's full-time chief strategist from 2020 to 2021, during the entire period Netanyahu was prime minister of Israel's 36th government.

Joshua Green is an American journalist who writes primarily on United States politics. He is currently the senior national correspondent at Bloomberg Businessweek. He is a weekly columnist for The Boston Globe and his work has also appeared in The Atlantic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Stepien</span> American political consultant

William Stepien is an American political consultant who served as the campaign manager for Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign beginning in July of that year. A member of the Republican Party, he was the White House Director of Political Affairs in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2018.

<i>Breitbart News</i> American far-right news and opinion website

Breitbart News Network is an American far-right syndicated news, opinion, and commentary website founded in mid-2007 by American conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart News's content has been described as misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by academics and journalists. The site has published a number of conspiracy theories and intentionally misleading stories. Posts originating from the Breitbart News Facebook page are among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Wolff (journalist)</span> American writer (born 1953)

Michael Wolff is an American journalist, as well as a columnist and contributor to USA Today, The Hollywood Reporter, and the UK edition of GQ. He has received two National Magazine Awards, a Mirror Award, and has authored seven books, including Burn Rate (1998) about his own dot-com company, and The Man Who Owns the News (2008), a biography of Rupert Murdoch. He co-founded the news aggregation website Newser and is a former editor of Adweek.

Robert Leroy Mercer is an American hedge fund manager, computer scientist, and political donor. Mercer was an early artificial intelligence researcher and developer and is the former co-CEO of the hedge fund company Renaissance Technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Bannon</span> American media executive, political strategist, and fraudster

Stephen Kevin Bannon is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump during the first seven months of Trump's term. He is a former executive chairman of Breitbart News and previously served on the board of the now-defunct data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Government Accountability Institute</span> Conservative conspiracy theory think tank

The Government Accountability Institute (GAI) is a conservative think-tank located in Tallahassee, Florida. GAI was founded in 2012 by Peter Schweizer and Steve Bannon with funding from Robert Mercer and family. Schweizer serves as the group's president.

<i>Clinton Cash</i>

Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich is a 2015 New York Times bestselling book by Peter Schweizer in which he investigates donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities, paid speeches made by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the state of the Clintons' finances since leaving the White House in 2001. It was published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins, and was adapted into both a film and a graphic novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maggie Haberman</span> American journalist (born 1973)

Maggie Lindsy Haberman is an American journalist, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, and a political analyst for CNN. She previously worked as a political reporter for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and Politico. She wrote about Donald Trump for those publications and rose to prominence covering his campaign, presidency, and post-presidency for the Times. In 2022, she published the best-selling book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidential transition of Donald Trump</span> Transfer of presidential power from Barack Obama to Donald Trump

Planning for the presidential transition of Donald Trump, led by then vice president-elect, former governor Mike Pence of Indiana, began before Donald Trump won the United States presidential election on November 8, 2016, and became the president-elect. Trump was formally elected by the Electoral College on December 19, 2016. The transition was formerly led by Chris Christie until he and a number of his supporters were replaced or demoted on November 11. The results were certified by a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2017, and the transition ended when Trump was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of Donald Trump</span>

This bibliography of Donald Trump is a list of written and published works, by and about Donald Trump. Due to the sheer volume of books about Trump, the titles listed here are limited to non-fiction books about Trump or his presidency, published by notable authors and scholars. Tertiary sources, satire, and self-published books are excluded.

Rebekah Mercer is an American heiress and Republican political donor who is the director of the Mercer Family Foundation. She began overseeing day-to-day operations of political projects for the Mercer family when the Mercers became involved in conservative causes. Her father, billionaire Robert Mercer, said in November 2017 that he had sold his stake in the news site Breitbart to his daughters. In August 2018, she funded and co-founded the social networking service Parler.

<i>Fire and Fury</i> 2018 book by Michael Wolff

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House is a 2018 book by journalist Michael Wolff which according to Wolff, details the behavior of U.S. President Donald Trump, the staff of his 2016 presidential campaign, and the White House staff. The title refers to a quote by Trump about the conflict with North Korea. The book became a New York Times number one bestseller. Reviewers generally accepted Wolff's portrait of a dysfunctional Trump administration, but were skeptical of many of Wolff's particular claims.

<i>American Dharma</i> 2018 British-American documentary film

American Dharma is a 2018 British-American documentary film directed by Errol Morris. The film follows the career of political strategist Steve Bannon. The film was released on November 1, 2019, by Utopia.

The Movement is a Brussels-based right-wing populist organization founded by Steve Bannon of the United States to promote right-wing populist and economic nationalist groups in Europe that are opposed to the European Union governments and political structures of Europe. The organization was expected to hire 10 full-time staff in Brussels before the 2019 European Parliament election. In January 2017, Mischaël Modrikamen, leader of the People's Party in Belgium, officially registered the group.

<i>Let Me Finish</i> 2019 book by Chris Christie

Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics is a 2019 autobiography by Chris Christie and Ellis Henican, looking back on Christie's political career, and, in particular, his endorsement of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

<i>Siege: Trump Under Fire</i> 2019 non-fiction book by Michael Wolff

Siege: Trump Under Fire is a book by Michael Wolff and which according to Wolff, details the behavior of U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration. The book is a sequel to Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, a New York Times number one bestseller.

America's Great Divide: From Obama to Trump is a 2020 two-part television documentary film about the political divide between the United States Democratic and Republican Party in the early 21st century. Produced by the investigative journalism program Frontline on PBS, it charts how the two major political parties became increasingly adversarial to each other due to factors of race, media, and misinformation, from the 2008 presidential election to the presidency of Donald Trump. The film was directed by Michael Kirk and written by Kirk and Mike Wiser, and was first aired on PBS in two parts on January 13 and 14, 2020.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Stephens, Bret (July 18, 2017). "How Steve Bannon and Donald Trump Rode the Honey Badger Into the White House". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331.
  2. 1 2 Luce, Edward (July 19, 2017). "The 'devil's bargain' between Bannon and Trump". Financial Times . Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Posner, Sarah (July 18, 2017). "A new book about Steve Bannon exposes the ugly side of Trumpism". The Washington Post . Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Tanenhaus, Sam (August 17, 2017). "The Making of the Tabloid Presidency". The New York Review of Books . ISSN   0028-7504.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Parton, Heather Digby (July 19, 2017). "Trump's Rasputin: Steve Bannon doesn't have Russia ties, but encapsulates infamous advisor's spiritualism". Salon . Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 Gross, Terry. "Inside The 'Shakespearean Irony' Of Trump And Bannon's Relationship". Fresh Air . NPR . Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  7. 1 2 3 Green, Lloyd (July 18, 2017). "Devil's Bargain review: Steve Bannon and the making of President Joe Pesci". The Guardian . ISSN   0261-3077.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Breeding, Jordan (July 18, 2017). "Devil's Bargain: Chris Christie Was Fired Because Donald Trump Didn't Want to Use His Filthy Cellphone". Paste .
  9. ↑ Wolff, Michael (January 5, 2018). Fire and Fury . New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 276. ISBN   9781250158062.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.