All the President's Women

November 11, 2019
Investigative journalists Levine and El-Faizy (God and Country) deliver a thorough and disturbing rundown of President Trump’s attitudes toward and interactions with women in this sobering account. The authors claim that 67 women have accused Trump of “inappropriate behavior, including sexual harassment or sexual assault,” and state plainly that “Donald Trump is, and has been for some time, a full-blown sexual predator.” Levine and El-Faizy note multiple infidelities in each of Trump’s three marriages; numerous claims that he has groped and forcibly kissed women on airplanes, during business meetings, and at parties; instances in which, as owner of Trump Model Management and the Miss Universe pageant, he barged backstage when women, many of them underage, were undressed; and rumors that he regularly offered adult film actresses $10,000 for sex. The book’s most salacious, if poorly sourced, charge is that Trump was filmed having sex with a porn star and an underage girl at a private brothel in Times Square in the early 1980s. By and large, however, Levine and El-Faizy succeed in laying out a credible pattern of misogynistic and predatory behavior, much of it supported by Trump’s own words on the infamous Access Hollywood tape and in interviews with Howard Stern. Though it rehashes much previously reported information, this somber narrative makes a strong case that Trump’s history of sexual misconduct goes far beyond “locker room talk.”

November 8, 2019

Relying heavily on firsthand interviews, court reports, and other documentation (including President Trump's own public comments), veteran journalists Levine and El-Faizy provide a comprehensive yet thoroughly disturbing look at the president's history and pattern of sexual misconduct. Following a roughly chronological narrative, they track instances of his callous behavior toward women in general, as well as specific incidents of sexually predatory behavior--including more than 40 new incidences of groping, unwanted kissing, and other inappropriate actions uncovered during the research and writing of this book. The volume's last third explores how the policies of the Trump presidency have affected women and how, despite numerous allegations of misconduct, he continues to receive the support of white evangelical women. The extensive appendix contains an organized accounting of all 67 incidents of harassment and assault of which Trump has been accused. VERDICT While many of the most shocking incidents discussed here are public knowledge, the significant new material and the book's usefulness as a single-volume source on the topic make this not only a critical current read but one likely to become even more important in the future.--Kathleen McCallister, William & Mary Libs., Williamsburg, VA

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