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Wicked Game: An Insider's Story on How Trump Won, Mueller Failed, and America Lost
As seen on Tucker Carlson Tonight and featured in The Washington Post and Bloomberg!
In a factual firsthand account of this turbulent period in our nation’s history, Donald Trump’s 2016 deputy campaign chairman takes us deep behind the scenes to examine the truth about how Trump won, why the Mueller investigation failed, and how the current state of presidential politics is tearing apart the very fabric of our democracy.
Rick Gates, who served as Donald Trump’s deputy campaign chairman in 2016 and as a cooperating witness in the Mueller investigation, gives readers a rare, in-depth look at one of the most controversial elections—and presidents—in U.S. history.
From a perspective only he can offer, Rick answers the important How was Trump able to beat sixteen high-profile, experienced Republican contenders, and Hillary Clinton, to win in 2016? How did the campaign work? What really happened with Russian election interference and the Mueller investigation? And more.
With refreshing candor, Rick shares his story, observations, and facts with the intent that readers form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions. The result is a thought-provoking account that informs and educates readers on both sides of the political aisle as we approach the 2020 election.
In up-close detail, Rick takes us through his personal journey to explain how Trump defied the odds, the polls, and even his own party to become the 45th president of the United States. He shares pivotal moments behind the scenes of the campaign and inauguration that have never been shared before, revealing critical decisions and political tactics that explain how Donald Trump was able to upset the entire Republican political establishment and beat a system built on centuries-old traditions. He also shows us how Donald Trump brought his personal brand to the presidency and how, in the end, the political establishment had no choice but to adapt to him —because Trump would never adapt to them .
Following the inauguration, Rick was entangled in the Robert Mueller investigation on Russian election interference. In Wicked Game , Rick lifts the veil to detail exactly what happened behind the operations of the Mueller probe, providing the first major account from an insider indicted in the investigation. In the government’s sentencing memo in their case against him, federal prosecutors took the unusual step of praising Rick for his “extraordinary assistance” in their “Gates has worked assiduously to provide truthful, complete, and reliable information,” they wrote. Which makes it all the more compelling when Rick’s account reveals the inadequacies of our legal system, and how a small group of people in Washington manipulated the political system for their own purposes—undermining our democracy in the process.
History has its eyes on America, and as people all over the world try to understand Trump’s presidency in a time of global crisis and uncertainty heading into the 2020 election, Rick’s powerful, firsthand account provides revealing and factual insights that he hopes Republicans and Democrats alike will learn from and apply as our nation moves forward.
In a factual firsthand account of this turbulent period in our nation’s history, Donald Trump’s 2016 deputy campaign chairman takes us deep behind the scenes to examine the truth about how Trump won, why the Mueller investigation failed, and how the current state of presidential politics is tearing apart the very fabric of our democracy.
Rick Gates, who served as Donald Trump’s deputy campaign chairman in 2016 and as a cooperating witness in the Mueller investigation, gives readers a rare, in-depth look at one of the most controversial elections—and presidents—in U.S. history.
From a perspective only he can offer, Rick answers the important How was Trump able to beat sixteen high-profile, experienced Republican contenders, and Hillary Clinton, to win in 2016? How did the campaign work? What really happened with Russian election interference and the Mueller investigation? And more.
With refreshing candor, Rick shares his story, observations, and facts with the intent that readers form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions. The result is a thought-provoking account that informs and educates readers on both sides of the political aisle as we approach the 2020 election.
In up-close detail, Rick takes us through his personal journey to explain how Trump defied the odds, the polls, and even his own party to become the 45th president of the United States. He shares pivotal moments behind the scenes of the campaign and inauguration that have never been shared before, revealing critical decisions and political tactics that explain how Donald Trump was able to upset the entire Republican political establishment and beat a system built on centuries-old traditions. He also shows us how Donald Trump brought his personal brand to the presidency and how, in the end, the political establishment had no choice but to adapt to him —because Trump would never adapt to them .
Following the inauguration, Rick was entangled in the Robert Mueller investigation on Russian election interference. In Wicked Game , Rick lifts the veil to detail exactly what happened behind the operations of the Mueller probe, providing the first major account from an insider indicted in the investigation. In the government’s sentencing memo in their case against him, federal prosecutors took the unusual step of praising Rick for his “extraordinary assistance” in their “Gates has worked assiduously to provide truthful, complete, and reliable information,” they wrote. Which makes it all the more compelling when Rick’s account reveals the inadequacies of our legal system, and how a small group of people in Washington manipulated the political system for their own purposes—undermining our democracy in the process.
History has its eyes on America, and as people all over the world try to understand Trump’s presidency in a time of global crisis and uncertainty heading into the 2020 election, Rick’s powerful, firsthand account provides revealing and factual insights that he hopes Republicans and Democrats alike will learn from and apply as our nation moves forward.
- GenresPolitics
256 pages, Hardcover
Published October 13, 2020
30 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 8, 2021
I enjoyed the perspective Rick Gates delivered in Wicked Game. The backstory for events I watched unfold during 2015 through 2021 raised my appreciation for how hard an outsider, like Donald Trump, had (has) to work to effect change, even from the inside out.
Gates’ bills Trump as a disruptor, and for four years, the president disrupted the political system. Half the country cheered on the challenges Trump made to the status quo and especially the do-nothing Congress. It’s surprising that he is still the focus of much attention in the media, more so than President Biden, who as of this writing still has not held a press conference after more than 55 days of holding the highest office in the land.
On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump’s message was, “The Republican Party has done nothing for you, and nothing for me. We’re going to win big, we’re going to change Republicans, we’re going to change Washington, we’re going to change the entire system!” His pronouncements resonated with most voters and he drew massive crowds, dwarfing those that attended Hillary Clinton gatherings.
Trump, like most voters, hated the fact that most politicians would “say something and not mean it.” Gates recalls, “He associated the word ‘pivot’ with the worst of what politics was all about and wanted nothing to do with it.” For example, Trump never softened his stance on immigration and continued to build the southern border wall and halted the practice of catch-and-release. His successor, President Biden, softened and created a border crisis less than six weeks into his term. Trump wasn’t going to stop fracking and he touted the Keystone Pipeline in support of American energy independence and high-paying jobs. Biden pivoted and began supporting the Green New Deal and signed an executive order banning the pipeline almost immediately after moving into the White House. These are but a few examples of Biden saying one thing and then doing another after being elected. Voters, once again, were lied to by a politician who pivoted after the election.
Trump also didn’t like anyone speaking for him and he wrote and issued his own tweets as a way to directly talk to his supporters. Biden, on the other hand, appears to have his surrogates write his press releases and script his short statements. After almost two months into his first term, Biden has yet to hold a press conference. He went from hiding in his Delaware basement during the presidential campaign to establishing a perimeter wall and hunkering down in the White House. He advocates open borders, but also a closed government from which decrees and mandates, apparently written for him, are launched.
Gates observed in the run up to the 2016 election, that on both sides of the aisle voters were sick of the cheating in politics and fed up with the status quo. He writes, “In both parties, there were more voters than not who believed it was time to ‘drain the swamp.’ Whether or not people believed that Donald Trump was the right person to do it, it was clear that more and more voters believed strongly that Hillary Clinton and her cronies were definitely not to be trusted to implement big-change reforms in Washington, nor were they capable of doing what was necessary to restore faith in our government.” Bureaucracies, as a rule, eschew changes, hence there was a built-in resistance to change anything, even bad government policies.
Trump tried governing and bringing those reforms to pass, but the bureaucracy, and what some call the “Deep State,” fought back to keep the status quo. In retrospect, the bureaucracy, aligned with the Democrats and their allies, propped up Joe Biden and restored the bureaucratic imperative of control, conformity, and condescension of the electorate. The next four years (2021 – 2024) will be interesting as the centrist Democrats (E.g., Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer) had to make a bargain with the socialists and communists of the left to maintain power, albeit by a slim margin.
Besides being his irreverent self, Trump’s 2016 campaign played a big role in his victory over Hillary Clinton. Gates explains, “Because it was self-funded by Trump in the beginning and had to build so much from scratch, our campaign was leaner and more determined. Like a startup in a big corporate universe, we were able to come into the marketplace and disrupt the status quo, to be nimble, break with traditions, displace the patterns, and win big because of it.”
Just like the startup I once worked for, Cerent, which became a major market disrupter, so did team Trump. And as Gates concludes, “Because we were so small, nobody saw us coming. Nobody thought we had a chance.” I can relate to this.
In the end, Trump has both won and lost when dealing with the massive federal government. I recommend you read Gates’ book, which sheds a light on the wicked game that continues to be played out in D.C.
“It’s almost as if Hillary Clinton was standing at the helm of the Titanic of the American political system, and Donald Trump was the iceberg.” (p.143)
---------
The startup reference is for The Upstart Startup:
https://www.amazon.com/Robert-K.-Kosl...
Gates’ bills Trump as a disruptor, and for four years, the president disrupted the political system. Half the country cheered on the challenges Trump made to the status quo and especially the do-nothing Congress. It’s surprising that he is still the focus of much attention in the media, more so than President Biden, who as of this writing still has not held a press conference after more than 55 days of holding the highest office in the land.
On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump’s message was, “The Republican Party has done nothing for you, and nothing for me. We’re going to win big, we’re going to change Republicans, we’re going to change Washington, we’re going to change the entire system!” His pronouncements resonated with most voters and he drew massive crowds, dwarfing those that attended Hillary Clinton gatherings.
Trump, like most voters, hated the fact that most politicians would “say something and not mean it.” Gates recalls, “He associated the word ‘pivot’ with the worst of what politics was all about and wanted nothing to do with it.” For example, Trump never softened his stance on immigration and continued to build the southern border wall and halted the practice of catch-and-release. His successor, President Biden, softened and created a border crisis less than six weeks into his term. Trump wasn’t going to stop fracking and he touted the Keystone Pipeline in support of American energy independence and high-paying jobs. Biden pivoted and began supporting the Green New Deal and signed an executive order banning the pipeline almost immediately after moving into the White House. These are but a few examples of Biden saying one thing and then doing another after being elected. Voters, once again, were lied to by a politician who pivoted after the election.
Trump also didn’t like anyone speaking for him and he wrote and issued his own tweets as a way to directly talk to his supporters. Biden, on the other hand, appears to have his surrogates write his press releases and script his short statements. After almost two months into his first term, Biden has yet to hold a press conference. He went from hiding in his Delaware basement during the presidential campaign to establishing a perimeter wall and hunkering down in the White House. He advocates open borders, but also a closed government from which decrees and mandates, apparently written for him, are launched.
Gates observed in the run up to the 2016 election, that on both sides of the aisle voters were sick of the cheating in politics and fed up with the status quo. He writes, “In both parties, there were more voters than not who believed it was time to ‘drain the swamp.’ Whether or not people believed that Donald Trump was the right person to do it, it was clear that more and more voters believed strongly that Hillary Clinton and her cronies were definitely not to be trusted to implement big-change reforms in Washington, nor were they capable of doing what was necessary to restore faith in our government.” Bureaucracies, as a rule, eschew changes, hence there was a built-in resistance to change anything, even bad government policies.
Trump tried governing and bringing those reforms to pass, but the bureaucracy, and what some call the “Deep State,” fought back to keep the status quo. In retrospect, the bureaucracy, aligned with the Democrats and their allies, propped up Joe Biden and restored the bureaucratic imperative of control, conformity, and condescension of the electorate. The next four years (2021 – 2024) will be interesting as the centrist Democrats (E.g., Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer) had to make a bargain with the socialists and communists of the left to maintain power, albeit by a slim margin.
Besides being his irreverent self, Trump’s 2016 campaign played a big role in his victory over Hillary Clinton. Gates explains, “Because it was self-funded by Trump in the beginning and had to build so much from scratch, our campaign was leaner and more determined. Like a startup in a big corporate universe, we were able to come into the marketplace and disrupt the status quo, to be nimble, break with traditions, displace the patterns, and win big because of it.”
Just like the startup I once worked for, Cerent, which became a major market disrupter, so did team Trump. And as Gates concludes, “Because we were so small, nobody saw us coming. Nobody thought we had a chance.” I can relate to this.
In the end, Trump has both won and lost when dealing with the massive federal government. I recommend you read Gates’ book, which sheds a light on the wicked game that continues to be played out in D.C.
“It’s almost as if Hillary Clinton was standing at the helm of the Titanic of the American political system, and Donald Trump was the iceberg.” (p.143)
---------
The startup reference is for The Upstart Startup:
https://www.amazon.com/Robert-K.-Kosl...
wish-list
October 15, 2020See convicted Trump aide plead for post-election Trump pardon on TV: Trump’s ‘unmasking’ probe commissioned by AG Bill Barr against the Obama administration concluded without any charges. Another investigation into the Russia probe investigators will not be concluded until after the 2020 election. MSNBC’s Ari Melber interviews former Trump deputy campaign manager Rick Gates about his decision to flip on Trump’s campaign chief, Trump’s pardon power and why so many Trump insiders have been indicted.
November 7, 2020
Wicked Game - outstanding!
I never had any idea that out politician's could do these thing to Americans! So sad.... I love this country, but now I see what's really going on, things I never thought could happen in America. It's really sad. That people could hate so much and do such terrible things.
I want USA to remain free! Not become a socialist country. I'll keep praying and know that God is in control. I wish all Americans could/would read this book!
I never had any idea that out politician's could do these thing to Americans! So sad.... I love this country, but now I see what's really going on, things I never thought could happen in America. It's really sad. That people could hate so much and do such terrible things.
I want USA to remain free! Not become a socialist country. I'll keep praying and know that God is in control. I wish all Americans could/would read this book!
December 12, 2020
Another book about the Trump presidency written by an insider. This book is very well organized and a very interesting read. I have read several books now by Trump insiders and my question is: why would anyone want to go into government and subject themselves to all the possible negative outcomes of a government career?
January 25, 2021
A Game It Is Not
Rick's book gave me new insights in why so many people voted for Mr. Trump despite his most recent disgraceful conduct.
Rick himself made many mistakes for which he has suffered greatly. I regret that but he would have done far better had he listened to us and acted with honor.
Rick's book gave me new insights in why so many people voted for Mr. Trump despite his most recent disgraceful conduct.
Rick himself made many mistakes for which he has suffered greatly. I regret that but he would have done far better had he listened to us and acted with honor.
December 20, 2020
Informative about how the Washington political machine works.
October 31, 2020
This book is Gates explaining his perception of the Trump election, the Mueller inquiry, and his views on politics. It seems to be written for the Republican tribe with the blame of the shenanigans on the government or deep state. He portrays himself as a victim and even calling the Mueller investigation political waterboarding. I was disappointed. He hasn't grown or learned anything from those experiences..
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews