The Fight of His Life

May 1, 2022

Former 60 Minutes producer Whipple (The Gatekeepers) takes readers inside President Joe Biden's White House and right up to the Oval Office, where he draws on insider connections to report on the tumultuous transfer of power and how decisions are being made amid pandemic, climate disaster, ongoing racism, the Afghanistan withdrawal, and, finally, the siege of Ukraine.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 12, 2022
Journalist Whipple follows up The Spymasters with a fascinating insider’s account of the first two years of the Biden administration. Drawing on interviews with Biden, chief of staff Ron Klain, and others, Whipple provides a balanced assessment of the administration’s successes and failures as it dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and more. A detailed look at the unprecedented transition process, complicated by Donald Trump’s refusal to concede defeat, reveals how much the peaceful transfer of power hinged on one largely unknown figure, deputy chief of staff Christopher Liddell, who stayed away from the Oval Office to avoid being asked questions by Trump. Whipple also sheds light on the ongoing debate over who’s responsible for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, quoting Klain’s rebuke of criticisms leveled by former defense secretary Leon Panetta and others: “I’m waiting for the first person who held a position of power in a previous administration... to say, ‘You know what? Maybe we didn’t do our jobs of making sure the taxpayers got what they paid for.’ ” Distinguished by Whipple’s impressive access and incisive character sketches, this is a valuable first draft of history.

February 1, 2023
Closely observed account of the accomplished yet beleaguered Biden White House. Whipple, author of The Gatekeepers and The Spymasters, appears to have easy access to the current administration, which, by contrast with the previous one, seems a model of collegiality and efficiency. However, as he shows, there are formidable obstacles. The fight of Whipple's title is the war in Ukraine, which has the potential to spill out into a larger European and even world war. That gloomy forecast isn't hyperbolic: CIA director William Burns, twice stationed in Moscow, affirmed to Biden that Putin, as Whipple writes, "was fed up and ready to settle scores." A fight just as existentially taxing is the obdurate MAGA movement; Trump may go away, but his namesake political movement shows no signs of disappearing--and it was Trump's Charlottesville equivalency speech that resolved Biden's decision to run for president. Thanks to MAGA and Trump's violent rhetoric and incompetence, Whipple shows, Biden's transitional team was hamstrung, with Trump officials who did help the incoming Biden people working in "a sub rosa operation, carried out under Trump's nose." Once inside the White House, the Biden team had to go to war immediately against the pandemic and its financial effects, which have played out in a bout of inflation that no one wanted but that wasn't entirely unforeseen. Whipple delivers a few dishy bits of inside baseball, including an increasingly difficult relationship between Biden and Kamala Harris, whom Biden characterizes privately as "a work in progress." (Less guardedly, Biden deems Trump "a fucking asshole.") Among the challenges incompletely met so far are border policy, police reform, and the intransigence of Joe Manchin and newly minted independent Kyrsten Sinema; among the failures are the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Still, Whipple concludes, the real achievements of the administration are many, and they continue to add up. There's more to the current administration than meets the eye, and Whipple is a reliable, readable interpreter.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 17, 2023
Following the success of his histories of CIA directors (The Spymasters, 2020) and White House chiefs of staff (The Gatekeepers, 2017), Whipple gives us this fascinating and intricate look at Joe Biden's nearly two-year-old presidency. From the 2020 Democratic primary, when the future president shockingly fell behind early to Bernie Sanders, up to the eve of the 2022 midterm election, Whipple seemingly spares no detail. Like a Shakespearean history play, the characters are well-known, yet the story feels fresh. Indeed, it has never been told so comprehensively. Whipple's prose is merely competent, but his reporting chops are undeniable. Even readers who follow the news obsessively will discover things, such as Jill Biden's under-reported Mother's Day meeting with Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine. One character who makes few appearances is Donald Trump, which is as it should be. This is Joe Biden's story. He has waited forever to tell it. Whipple is the perfect person to help him do that.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.