Book: The Fifth Risk

Michael Lewis's previous book was on Trump's presidential transition. Call it a guilty pleasure, I love reading that, the day after the election, Steve Bannon fired the entire Trump transition team and ceremoniously dumped all of their transition preparation materials into a garbage can.

Yeah, what could go wrong?

Legally, previous administration staff are only allowed to interact with the incoming administration staff during the transition period, the time between the election and the inauguration.

Trump and his family planned,on purpose, to have no transition. They wanted to take over offices on January 20 and discard everything.

The gentleman Trump hired to run DOE was an ExxonMobil lobbyist who was also on the Koch brothers' payroll.

What could possibly go wrong?

The author asked the outgoing head of DOE how many days he'd had to bring the new head up to speed: Rick Perry, who'd said in the presidential debates that he'd eliminate DOE (except he couldn't think of their name).

"That's the wrong unit of account," he replied.  It was not days.  It was not even hours. It was mere minutes. "He had no personal interest in what we do.  He was not briefed on a program, not a single one -- which to me was shocking."

This is the department charged with safeguarding America's nuclear stockpile, and preventing adversaries from acquiring their own. And none of Trump's people had security clearances to discuss this anyway.

What could possibly go wrong?

Chris Christie was fired as the head of Trump's transition team because he had prosecuted Jared Kushner's father for fraud.  He was not replaced.

The Gild Grifters.  Lewis doesn't use that phrase to describe the Trump family, I just made it up, but he makes clear the whole family is equally shallow and greedy.

Between that and "the cartoon palace in the swamp," I think maybe I should write a book.

Michael Lewis met with the outgoing head of Homeland Security after the transition. He asked what the five scariest threats to national security were.

Nuclear accident or rogue use. Climate change. Terrorist attacks on infrastructure, like our electrical grid. Accidental or intentional hazards in the food or water supply.

#5? Bad management.

Meh, about halfway through Lewis loses the thread. Instead of talking about the terrible choices Trump made to run agencies, he starts telling in-depth stories about the great unsung heroes who got replaced. Good stories, but kinda off topic for the title.