I mean, I think what's interesting is that the people who have been his biggest enablers, who have just been completely submissive to him throughout the last four years, who have supported him every step of the way privately have great ambivalence about him, to say the least. Mark Leibovich, Author, 'Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission': Yes. But you also make it clear what you think about him and what you believe he's done to this country. Mark Leibovich, welcome back to the 'NewsHour.' Congratulations on this book.Īnd I want to say, as you point out, this is not a book about Donald Trump. Journalist and author Mark Leibovich does just that in his latest book, 'Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission.' We can check out any time we want, but only time will tell if we can ever leave.Many books have been written about Donald Trump and his presidency, but few have examined the motivations of the Republicans who initially were wary of him, but later pledged complete loyalty. Thank You for Your Servitude isn’t another view from the Oval Office: it’s the view from the Trump Hotel.

It’s a vista that makes the Washington of This Town seem like a comedy of manners in comparison. All that cynicism, shading into nihilism, led to a country truly unhinged from reality, and to the events of January 6, 2021. Meanwhile, many of the most alpha of the lapdogs happily conceded to Mark Leibovich that they were “in on the joke.”Īs Lindsey Graham told the author, his supporters in South Carolina generally don’t read The New York Times, and they won’t read this book, either. Trump’s savage bullying of everyone in his circle, along with his singular command of his political base, created a dangerous culture of submission in the Republican Party. What would these politicos do to preserve their place in the sun, or at least the orbit of the spray tan? What would they do to preserve their “relevance”? Almost anything, it turns out. Thank You for Your Servitude is Mark Leibovich’s unflinching account of the moral rout of a major American political party, tracking the transformation of Rubio, Cruz, Graham, and their ilk into the administration’s chief enablers, and the swamp’s lesser lights into frantic chasers of the grift. Even more, in their outrage: Trump was a menace and an affront to our democracy. In the early months of Trump’s candidacy, the Republican Party’s most important figures, people such as Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Lindsey Graham, were united-and loud-in their scorn and contempt.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller This Town, the eyewitness account of how the GOP collaborated with Donald Trump to transform Washington’s “swamp” into a gold-plated hot tub-and a onetime party of rugged individualists into a sycophantic personality cult.

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