The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America

by Jim Acosta

A New York Times bestseller.

From CNN’s veteran Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, an explosive, first-hand account of the dangers he faces reporting on the current White House while fighting on the front lines in President Trump’s war on truth, featuring new material exclusive to the paperback edition. In Mr. Trump’s campaign against what he calls “Fake News,” CNN Chief White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, is public enemy number one. From the moment Mr. Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, he has attacked the media, calling journalists “the enemy of the people.”

Acosta presents a damning examination of bureaucratic dysfunction, deception, and the unprecedented threat the rhetoric Mr. Trump is directing has on our democracy. When the leader of the free world incites hate and violence, Acosta doesn’t back down, and he urges his fellow citizens to do the same.

At Mr. Trump’s most hated network, CNN, Acosta offers a never-before-reported account of what it’s like to be the President’s most hated correspondent. Acosta goes head-to-head with the White House, even after Trump supporters have threatened his life with words as well as physical violence.

From the hazy denials and accusations meant to discredit the Mueller investigation, to the president’s scurrilous tweets, Jim Acosta is in the eye of the storm while reporting live to millions of people across the world. After spending hundreds of hours with the revolving door of White House personnel, Acosta paints portraits of the personalities of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer, Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner and more. Acosta is tenacious and unyielding in his public battle to preserve the First Amendment and #RealNews.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Journalism, Audiobook, Memoir, Biography

390 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 11, 2019

Reviews

[Carole · Rating 5 out of 5]

History tells us that muzzling and disrespecting the free press has been the ruin of many a country. It is the quickest way to chaos, civil wars and anarchy. All the journalists cannot all be wrong. Read this book and feel the chill.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've ever wondered if the journalists covering this current administration find it as mind-boggling, disturbing, and downright batshit crazy as many of the rest of us do, this book will answer your question.

Jim Acosta's spars with press secretaries and Individual 1 himself are legendary, and he writes about it all here. He pulls no punches. He comes across as stubborn and dogged and also quite funny. I remember all of these exchanges and it was interesting to read about them from his viewpoint.

But his underlying message is important: a free press is vital to a democracy. Truth matters. And "American democracy is only as strong as the people willing to hold it accountable."

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words can never express the gratitude of the nation for reporters like Jim Acosta. He is a top shelf journalist . His advice to young journalists: "Do your job and tell the truth." To be clear, his book is commentary. His job is reporting.

[Jim Razinha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could be titled American Horror Story, subtitled with an update to the 2004 Daily Mirror headline: How Can 62,984,828 People Be So Dumb? But Mr. Acosta calls it like the journalist he is: the hate-filled, physically threatening, dangerous to the remaining shreds of a faux democracy spew from the mind-boggling swamp we have descended into since that amended headline. From the ichor of the campaign trail and the surreal hate mongering rallies to the peat bog of covering the White House and having to deal with the ilk of Spicer and Sanders, and the childish tantrums of their boss, enduring public attacks and death threats, Acosta has seen much, reported on much, seen such blatant lies, called out such blatant lies, and been the target of petulance unheard of from an office that has changed the face of public interaction forever...and in case my description leaves any ambiguity, not in a good way. Acosta's detractors and enemies will cry much fault here, and he does lapse his professionalism a bit - admitting so when he does - because the high road is so far out of the intellectual range of the wrong wingers as to be invisible and silent, so he descends closer to their level to throw a few punches back at the mindless bullies.

Okay. That'll draw some comments. This book covers a period from the time of a candidacy announcement through a successful restoration of WH credentials that had been childishly revoked under contrived accusations (somebody doesn't like to be confronted, and really doesn't like to be confronted by someone smarter). Acosta "dangerously" calls out the truth:

Beyond the slash-and-burn tactics employed by his campaign against his rivals, [T] has often twisted the truth, lied, and attacked those who would call out his falsehoods— most notably the national press corps. The Washington Post fact-checkers have catalogued nearly ten thousand false or misleading statements in the first two years of his presidency.

He paid a price and still does.I have seen my life turned upside down covering Trump. His attacks on me and my colleagues, dedicated and talented journalists, have real-life consequences. My family and friends worry about my safety. I hope at the end of the day the sacrifice will be worth it. No. I know it will be.Acosta was not new to the WH beat. And he, like many of us, saw a problem looming.

As a reporter who’d covered previous administrations as well as much of [T]’s campaign, I suspected the office would not transform the man. [T] struck me as potentially unprepared for the White House.

"potentially"?? say rather, "wholly". Acosta drew a line early

But there was a more pressing emergency that day [January 11, 2017]: [T]'s disregard for the truth. The incoming president was questioning the validity of a perfectly legitimate news story. [...] One thing I tried to make clear at that news conference is that the truth is worth defending.

And his credentials (the real ones, not the paper ones issued and revoked) gives him access to some placed anonymous sources...

As a very senior White House official would later tell me, this was all by design. “He rules by instability. He wins by making everything around him unstable,” the official told me. That way, the official said, [T] controls the chaos.

Acosta discusses the immigration imperative ("It appeared he’d come to the White House to weaponize his biases, and the travel ban was his first order of business ") that he rightly ties directly to a tragically/comically deranged evil in the form of Stephen Miller ("Miller wasn’t drinking the immigration Kool-Aid. He was making it.") and the beginnings of the concentrated attacks on the press, quoting transcripts (and honestly admitting when the transcript did not reflect his recall because microphones were turned off or pulled away) like when T answers another reporter "... the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake."

The leaks are real, but the news is fake. Did you get that? Let that wash over you for a second. It’s a bit of a mind-bender. This was when, listening to [T], I would feel my eyes glaze over. My thought at that moment was, What the hell is he talking about?

Curiously, neither T nor his sheep ever seem to have registered that crying "leak" admits guilt. (Yes, someone can leak fake information, but seriously, look at the many, many contexts where the leaks were not of fake information.) When T says to Acosta for all to hear "Well, that’s— well, you know, we do have other people. You do have other people and your ratings aren’t as good as some of the other people that are waiting.", does he hear himself? Another anonymous official:

“[T]watches you guys nonstop,” the official said of the president’s secret preference for watching CNN. “He watches Fox to make himself feel better,” he added.

Head shake. Just wow. In the Spicer "era", Acosta tells a sad truth:

Part of the problem we have run up against as reporters in the age of [T] is that we have to serve as fact-checkers in real time. Because [T] sometimes begins the day with untrue or unfounded claims on Twitter, journalists must spend much of their time setting the record straight.

There's that chaos. And it sadly works...the sheep swallow the manure with shallow minds blank...the rest of us can't sift fast enough. Spicer, Acosta observes, was sorely unqualified, and would scream inanities, even calling Acosta at home

There I was, standing next to my young son, who had come into the room, listening to Sean screaming at the top of his lungs, “You’re a f***ing weasel!” When I hung up, I looked down at my son. With a look of astonishment on his face, he asked, “Who was that?”“Son,” I said, “that was the White House.”

Acosta doesn't, nor should he, censor the interchange. His replacement...though not a screamer, was worse (or better at lying.) On one of the quite rare occasions where Stephen Miller was at the press briefing, Miller's stealth leaked:

One interesting moment in our exchange came when Miller, after being challenged on these points, lobbed what appeared to be a fresh line of attack. According to him, I was revealing my “cosmopolitan bias.” What in the world is a “cosmopolitan bias,” you ask? It is as bizarre to me now as it was then, but it is not an unfamiliar term. As it turns out, the term cosmopolitan was used by Joseph Stalin to purge anti-Soviet critics in the USSR.

Surprised? Acosta said Miller was too smart to be drawn in by obvious questions ("Isn't this a racist policy?"), so he had to throw him off with the unexpected - the poem from the base of the Statue of Liberty - to maybe get a candid remark. Acosta says

For the record, I would debate Miller anytime anywhere on the subject of immigration— not because I have a passion for flooding America with immigrants from south of the border, as the xenophobes would have you believe. (Miller accused me at that briefing of being in favor of “open borders,” a tactic used by anti-immigration zealots.

Immodest? Why not?
The chapter on Charlottesville is a dark one in our history, and a revealing one of the true T. "It is still stunning to read the president’s remarks from that day. As of this writing , remarkably, they remain on the official White House website. " Of the Helsinki embarrassment:

“Every time he [Putin] sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that, when he tells me that, he means it,” [T] said to reporters on Air Force One. “I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.”

Jaw drop. Who the eff cares if Putin is insulted??? Putin maybe, his people on his behalf, ... and T (oh...yeah...) This book was published before the latest flipflop love affair with Kim Jong Un...T was bragging to the Puerto Rico governor about being able to use his nuclear football on Kim, and now he's besties? When T was crowing over the body slamming of a journalist by a future congress, um, man, Acosta says

It was a perfect example of why my concerns are not just about the president’s behavior. They’re about his effect on the rest of the country.

And that effect was intensely personal, after his revoked credentials were forced to be restored:

There I was, standing in the street tossing a football with my son (as we often do), and about fifty feet away from us stood a man with a gun on his belt: a security guard assigned to my family and me in response to the death threats that had been pouring in as part of the backlash to the judge’s ruling in CNN’s favor.

Damn. Acosta closes with something I hold dear and repeat out loud, almost as a mantra:

There must be a common understanding that words matter. They have meaning. Words have power. I believe the term “the enemy of the people” will come to help define this era, when one group of people was pitted against another in ways that I had not seen in my lifetime.

This. Really this. And finally:

Some of us, not I, have sacrificed everything for this profession, from war zones to, unfortunately, newsrooms. Journalists have done this out of a deep devotion to the people. It is a devotion born out of a love for all people. That is a truth worth defending, as journalists are people too.

Yes. They are.

[Chris Sosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim Acosta will be remembered by history as central to the narrative of President Donald Trump's war on the free press. That makes "The Enemy of the People" an essential work of contemporaneous journalism regarding the Trump administration.

Let's get this out of the way upfront. Is Acosta an irritating, self-satisfied and cartoonishly macho figure whose persona harms the seriousness with which other journalists are taken? Yes, yes, yes and maybe a little bit.

But no criticism of Acosta's personality detracts from the fact he stands on the right side of history and recounted this important moment with clarity. Acosta presents a full-throated defense of the concept of a free press and expertly contextualizes his first-person experiences with the Trump administration.

"The Enemy of the People" is a solid read from an obviously gifted long-form reporter.

[Degenerate Chemist · Rating 1 out of 5]

Save your money and get this from the library. It's hard to sympathize with Jim Acosta who helped create a problem and didn't really care about it until it started affecting him directly.

I hope his attitudes are not indicative of the general attitudes of our news media because we are in trouble if they are. Passive aggressively sniping with Sarah Sanders doesnt impress anyone and it's not an act of bravery. Being shocked by the presence of white supremacists in the White House was just funny to me, how naive and sheltered could one man possibly be?

The overall message of this book is good, that words matter and how our leaders conduct themselves translate into how our society functions, but it couldn't have come from a worse messenger. The lame attempts at humor scattered throughout the book made it just that much harder to take seriously.

Not to mention, there were factual errors in a few places, like when Acosta pretends Trump is the only president who has ever played nice with the Saudi's and there has never been any precedent for that in the past.

I had no real opinion on news media one way or the other before I read this book. Now that I have read it I definitely have a negative view of news media and I will never be able to take Jim Acosta seriously again.

[Wayne Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m normally not a reader of political non fiction books. Especially ones that are negative in tone, I’ve always found them to be a bit tacky. That being said, I’ve watched the President of the United States of America shout “fake news” instead of intelligently defend his record every time a news story comes out that he doesn’t fancy. I’ve watched press briefings disappear and reporters disrespected. Acosta has stood up to our bully in chief time and time again and has defended the right to free press and free speech. This story is worth telling and he tells it effectively with humor and heart.

[Susan (aka Just My Op) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I'm a reporter, but I'm an American first.” But Jim Acosta is very much a reporter, a journalist, and has been slapped down for it, belittled, and received more than a few vicious and graphic death threats. Is this any way to treat a White House reporter for CNN? Apparently it is if you are reporting on a president who considers any reporter who questions the president's actions and behavior to be an Enemy of the People. Our democracy is built on the concept, among others, of freedom of the press, and it's an incredibly dangerous precedent to want to muzzle them.

Of course, there is no such problem if you are one of the sycophantic news organizations who toady up to everything the president says and does, even when it's obvious he is lying and obvious he contradicts himself.

Mr. Acosta had his White House press pass revoked when it was claimed he acosta'd an intern, despite that the original video show that was absolutely not true, even the doctored video released fails to confirm this. (Apologies for the bad pun.) And the revocation had to be challenged in court, with a Trump-appointed jurist in charge.

Apparently, Mr. Acosta has been criticized for grandstanding, for being abrasive. I don't find his reporting to be that, I just find a hard-hitting journalist who wants to get answers to his legitimate questions and is repeatedly rebuked for it.

To have a president who calls a mainstream journalist “the enemy of the people” is extraordinarily dangerous. If we lose freedom of the press, we are on the fast track to lose our democracy. Crying wolf? I don't think so.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acosta does a great job of describing how he experienced events we all watched on TV over the last few years. Good account and tying fact and personal perspective together...if you are looking for him to be a reporter and not a commentator..please watch the news.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you

It’s encouraging that you remain committed to freedom if the press and it’s importance to our democracy. I remain hopeful.

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acosta details the behind the scenes chaos of covering this White House, which attacks the press on a daily basis. But here, we see what it is like covering the news as a White House Correspondent, particularly if you are Jim Acosta from CNN, who literally had his 1st and 5th Amendment rights violated by the White House as determined by a federal judge appointed by Trump.

The book begins with the Inauguration and covers through early 2019, when Acosta had his press credential revoked and then restored by the judicial process. We learn more details of the utter contempt this Administration has for a free press that can ask critical questions (they have done so of every POTUS). Acosta of course has serious criticism and even nasty stories about Trump, but his real animus is directed towards Sean Spicer and even more so for Sarah Huckabee Sanders (who comes across as a political hack and disingenuous press secretary of dubious tactics). Let's face it: if you're a Trump supporter, you're not going to read or like this book. But if you are concerned about the state of our country, the actions of this Administration, and especially the violent attacks on the media when you remember when the media investigated and reported the news, you will be sympathetic to Acosta's account. These stories only really get out in books and not in broadcast interviews, and Acosta tells a great story.

[The Pfaeffle Journal (Diane) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Acosta comes across as a little self-centered. While I respect that he has stood up to Trump, I feel his tone is a bit boastful.

[Sean Asbury · Rating 2 out of 5]

D-R-A-M-A.

Complaining about someone taking pot-shots at him in a book that is 350 pages of him taking pot shots at others.

[Thelizyouknow · Rating 5 out of 5]

By way of disclaimer, I should say that I've been a news junkie since CNN was the only 24 hour news channel, and I've pretty much stayed with this network. That means I was watching the events Acosta, the network's White House correspondant, describes in the book.

It's still worth hearing his point of view.

The Trump administration has not behaved toward the press as its predecessors did. They seem to disallow any intelligence on behalf to the average citizen in telling obvious untruths--that's my point of view as a news consumer, but I believe it to be valid. When journalists have called them on it, the White House's reaction has been like using a nuclear missile on a mosquito--overkill to the point that it draws criticism and is in fact ineffective--the mosquito just circles around for another try.

Mr. Acosta might not appreciate the comparison to a blood-sucking insect, since he is in fact doing his job. For the record, he does it quite well. This book describes his struggle against the administration's designation of him, his employer and the whole of the American press as "enemies of the people" in ways I found intriguing, to say the least. However, the bit that will stick with me is the image of Acosta, having been advised by his employer and his legal counsel to keep quiet during his court case, waiting until he got in the car after the temporary restraining order restored his press pass was issued before yelling "We beat Trump!"

This is a memoir, not news reporting, so it's not supposed to be unbiased. The facts Acosta states, though, seem to comport to the things I saw at the time. The book is readable and enjoyable.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled fiction reviews.

[Everydayreader1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veteran Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, forthrightly details his confrontation with the Trump White House on matters of truth, fact, lies, deceit, fake news, and the necessity of a free press. He also shares his family history as a first generation American, his views on democracy, and where we go from here.

I anxiously awaited the publication of this book, and it does not disappoint. Jim Acosta's candor about the Trump administration's assault on our democracy and freedom of the press, though scary and disheartening, is also refreshing and hopeful because he, and other journalists, continue to do their jobs and inform the American people about what is happening, speaking truth to power. There is nothing fake about that. It is admirable and, in my view, heroic, especially in the face of threats to personal safety. There is much to think about concerning intolerance, lack of acceptance of others, and immigration and other policies this administration has enacted which stifle democracy, and our response to it as citizens. I am thankful to Jim Acosta for his contributions to journalism and his unwavering efforts to hold the Trump administration accountable to explain to the American people and the world what they are doing and the consequences of those actions and policies. I highly recommend that everyone, regardless of political beliefs, take the time to read this book.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

EXCELLENT book! I am a news junkie, and my channel of choice is CNN. So when all of the hubub went down between Jim Acosta and the White House, I was riveted to see how it would all turn out. Jim Acosta offers an inside view from his perspective of dealing with "Trump World" as he calls it and navigating his way around the open hostility directed at both him and other members of the press. It is always shocking to me when I hear of the repeated attempts by our current administration to suppress the news they don't like, and discredit those who report it. Hearing how things occurred from Jim's perspective is an interesting insiders' viewpoint. Although we are almost all aware of it now, it still surprises me to see the lengths some of the White House staff will go to in an attempt to back up Trump's lies. This was an engrossing read and I whipped through it in 2 days!

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.25 stars.

I take no issue with the author's negative comments about President Donald J. Trump, Sean Spicer, Sarah Sanders and the rest of the crew. I fully agree and have plenty more of my own complaints to add.

My problem with the book is that it's dull, repetitive, self-important, cliche-addled, oddly restrained at times, and occasionally reads YA for periodic short & oversimplified passages. It's almost sinful that a book about Trump is dull.

I've read a few other books about DJT 45 and they've all been from insider perspectives. This book is different because it's from Jim Acosta's outsider/reporter perspective. Sometimes different for the sake of being different is better but not in this case.

[Vader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was a waste of my time, that alas I will never get back.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having heard the author speak a few weeks before the publication of this book I was very looking forward to it.

It’s okay, even good, as an account if his experiences as a White House correspondent. I had hope for
More analysis and less contemporaneous recounting if events.

Is it a must-read? Based on the title, I think it should be. Reading it submerged me in the steady stream
of the ridiculous and even horrifying realities of this time in the life of our nation. Following the news on a daily basis provides with more than I need of that.

I hope that at some point Acosta (and maybe others) will bring more of the analysis of the impact of these times and events on our democracy than mere retelling. He hints at it towards the end. I wanted more.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do I wish that at this point the world really didn't need any more books calling out some form of egregiously awful behaviour or other by the Trump administration and certain individuals therein? Why yes, I certainly do. But as long as such behaviour continues and, if anything, intensifies, books such as this remain very much relevant and needed and will continue to end up on my TBR. The enduring attacks on the media and free speech in particular have been and continue to be shocking and appalling not only to many Americans but also to those of us watching and shaking our heads in dismay and disbelief from around the world, and anyone who stands up against them has my full and unwavering support.

[Susan Lawson, SL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing What Journalists Do.

Consider a country without the press and the kind of president we have today. It boggles my mind that Trump supporters have not ever considered that possibility. It's very scary. This book is not a hit piece, it explains in a very respectful way what journalists have to go through.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

An entitled brat who fancies himself in a revolutionary costume at some drunken party. A disrespectful stance for every individual who lives under oppression, as opposed of a whining wimp decrying the excess of fat in his low fat latte.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dear diary ...

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well-written narrative of what it is like to cover the Trump White House. Keep up the good work, White House Press Corps! You are NOT the enemy of the people.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone who follows Jim Acosta, and the news briefing. Already knows the story whats in the book. My recommendation is if you follow Mr. Acosta religiously on the news. It is just a repeat of what has been going on. I don't want to re-live the last two years again. I did, by buying the book. But, if you are not a political junkie. I recommend that you read it. Most of the things he went through in the last two years I already knew about.

There are some things I didn't know about Mr. Acosta. Such as that he comes from a Cuban father. Which makes sense why he stands up, and not to be silenced. Why the freedom of speech and freedom of the press is so important to him.

One thing I have to say that irritates me over, and over again. Is that journalists and reporters are so competitive for the story. Many of them were angry at Mr. Acosta for standing up to the President. They felt he was part of the story. To stand up to the president, unfortunately. The only way is to be part of the story. Thank g-d for Mr. Acosta and others like him. Who makes the President, and his cabinet accountable for his actions.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The press corp who cover the Trump White House deserve hazard pay for the job they have to put up. I was amazed and appalled by all the crap they have to endure to just bring us the news and report what was said, and then fact check the information. Reading Jim Acosta's details about covering the Trump White House really does show what a dangerous job covering THIS White House has become.

Having a job where you are forced to interact with bullies and liars everyday can't be easy. But then having things escalate to where your life is in danger due to a tweet from this President puts the job of being a journalist covering the White House in a whole new category of risk.

Thank GOD we have people like Jim Acosta and other journalists like him who continue to push back on this President's abhorrent behavior and lies. These journalists seem to be the only ones who are still standing and willing to not back down against these attacks from Trump's White House. These journalists have become America's last hope and they deserve our attention and respect. We can't survive without them.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Debate

I debated my rating for this book. I really felt there was a lot of "poor me" in it and almost quit reading before I was done. I'm glad I finished, though. I respect Acosta's reporting, which is the primary reason I bought the book. I agree with the abuse and disregard of this President and administration to the rule of law is unconstitutional. The author's epilogue saved the book IMO. I remain hopeful the institutions created by our Founding Fathers with our Constitution will get us through this era and return to the values we've held for over 2 centuries.

[Stephen Malo]

Wow

After reading this book by Jim Acosta, the first words that came to me were, "God help us". The current disaster known as the Trump administration and his treatment of the free press is disgusting. The audacity of any president to feel they have the right to pick and choose which reporters are allowed to report? This screams of Nazi Germany in the 1940's. Absolutely sickening. Kudos to Jim for fighting the good fight. It means more than you know.

[Bettie]

"Hearing Sean Hannity is taking some shots at me over my book. Two things Sean... #1 I offered to come on your show and talk about the book and you guys declined. Sad! You’re in the book. It was that time you had a chance to say something to my face but didn’t. Enjoy!" - Jim Acosta

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

wanted to love this book, liked it very much. I am trying to read all the books written about the current strange political times we are in.
Historically important.
Many scenarios which were not greatly reported.
The press pass incident explained.
Mildly scary.

must read for those trying to understand the current state of the union.