Nightmare Scenario

Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History

By: Yasmeen Abutaleb, Damian Paletta

Narrated by: Kirsten Potter

Instant number one New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller

From the Washington Post journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta - the definitive account of the Trump administration’s tragic mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the chaos, incompetence, and craven politicization that has led to more than a half million American deaths and counting.

Since the day Donald Trump was elected, his critics warned that an unexpected crisis would test the former reality-television host - and they predicted that the president would prove unable to meet the moment. In 2020, that crisis came to pass, with the outcomes more devastating and consequential than anyone dared to imagine. Nightmare Scenario is the complete story of Donald Trump’s handling - and mishandling - of the COVID-19 catastrophe, during the period of January 2020 up to Election Day that year. Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta take us deep inside the White House, from the Situation Room to the Oval Office, to show how the members of the administration launched an all-out war against the health agencies, doctors, and scientific communities, all in their futile attempts to wish away the worst global pandemic in a century.

From the initial discovery of this new coronavirus, President Trump refused to take responsibility, disputed the recommendations of his own pandemic task force, claimed the virus would “just disappear,” mocked advocates for safe-health practices, and encouraged his base and the entire GOP to ignore or rescind public health safety measures. Abutaleb and Paletta reveal the numerous times officials tried to dissuade Trump from following his worst impulses as he defied recommendations from the experts and even members of his own administration. And they show how the petty backstabbing and rivalries among cabinet members, staff, and aides created a toxic environment of blame, sycophancy, and political pressure that did profound damage to the public health institutions that Americans needed the most during this time. Even after an outbreak in the fall that swept through the White House and infected Trump himself, he remained defiant in his approach to the virus, very likely costing him his own reelection.

Based on exhaustive reporting and hundreds of hours of interviews from inside the disaster zone at all levels of authority, Nightmare Scenario is a riveting account of how the United States government failed its people as never before, a tragedy whose devastating aftershocks will linger and be felt by generations to come.

©2021 Yasmeen Abutaleb, Damian Paletta (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

A must read.

Excellent Book
Lots of information we were not told.
I loved it ❤♥💕
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Unbelievable Information!

This book pretty much validated exactly what I thought was going on at this White House. I find it so unbelievable that so many people drank Trumps poison koolaid. I have been a Nurse for 38 years, so I have the medical knowledge to help family, friends and acquaintances better understand what was going on. What I came to realize throughout this Pandemic that was the number of them who believed Trump’s rhetoric over my knowledge diseases. It was TRULY mind-boggling to see common sense and facts go the way side. One can only hope that the people of this country will realize and see the truth and lies of Trump’s actions/words REALLY did to our country ….This man needs to be stopped and NEVER allowed to hold any official position in government AGAIN!!!

The Case For Genocide

BRILLIANT! A case for prosecuting T**** for genocide is clearly developed and explained. Mass murder from incompetence and craven self-interest will be the legacy of the MAGA movement.

Required reading for all

This book should be included in all history classes. It could help prevent us from allowing history to repeat itself.

Builds slowly, like the virus

For me the book started out a little slow but became captivating and went quickly, unlike that hellish year plus. Well done.

Good book

While to some, this book may seem somewhat random, it really gives you the feel of the Trump administration. This book really shows the randomness of pretty much everything they did!
A four year long game of "Whack-a-mole"!!

Recommended

A a medical doctor, I really enjoyed it. It laid out a lot of what I really suspected was occurring behind the scenes. The prior administration absolutely failed to protect the public from this horrible virus. I personally lost 11 patients to this virus in 11 months. My life and the lives of my patients are forever changed. Science before politics …

Worse than I'd imagined

Was the Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic as bad as you expected? Read this book and discover that it was actually worse, and that's saying something. History will judge these people as the most Craven and incompetent people to ever occupy the White House. And that's also saying something.

Comprehensive and compelling, the only people who wouldn't benefit from reading this are the people who would join Trump if he dove out of an airplane without a parachute. For the rest of us, this book illustrates his historical stupidity, cruelty and incompetence and how it infected every person he touched during a historic crisis. It also works as a grave warning, that another moment like it could happen tomorrow and destroy the lives of millions if we allow another feckless third rate banana republic dictator like him and his merry band of fawning morons near the keys to the country again.

Trump: The wrong man at the wrong time. Period.

This is a phenomenal book. A book about politics, the pandemic and staggering ineptitude that led to thousands upon thousands of deaths. The previous administrations mismanagement of the pandemic was in full sight for all of America to see. This book does an amazing job outlining the myriad of issues that led to the astounding failure. Trump was the wrong man at the wrong time. The antithesis of a leader. His inability to grasp the severity of the pandemic is mind numbing.

Trump is Gobsmakingly Dumb

I have read six to nine books now telling the inside story to the functionality of Trump and the Trump administration. Unless all those tellings were made-up stories (hoaxes), the following may be discerned. Trump is not competent. He is incompetent. He does not understand how to build out rational concepts, and he does not know how to organize to achieve results. He listens to spirits and spirit weavers, and disdains people who present the elements of scenarios and match those scenarios to known symptomatology; a diagnosis of the problem, and analyzed antidote or resolve. The universality of all the insider books is Trump is quite dumb and vicious when his inanity does not fix his issues. Nightmare Scenario, Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History, by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, and read by Kirsten Potter, is a gobsmacking tell of how utterly incompetent the Trump administration was in seeing the threat, defining the problem, and seeking resolve(s). I do mean it, incompetent. Incomprehensibly incompetent. Of all the books, noted in my introduction this was the most intriguing to read and the most salient. Very much recommended. This was definitively a frightful set of consequences but made bearable by the beautifully reading of Kristen Potter.